Castlevania: Refrain of Darkness
by eiahmon
Summary: Aqua receives a mission to investigate a new world that's appeared on the council's radar due to a Heartless invasion, and finds that everything is different here. Now she must team up with Juste Belmont and track down the source of the Heartless in a world where souls have all the power and hearts don't belong.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So Lita_Snow and I have been plugging away at this fic off and on for a few years. We'd been discussing working on a crossover together (And The Dragon and they Keyblade Wielder from Little Things was born from that.) and this is what we came up with. nearly 100k words later, here we are. The fic is completed, and we're in the middle of the final editing and such right now. We're going to post one chapter a week, and there are 13 chapters in total.**

 **Chapter 1**

Aqua climbed the spiraling steps that led up the inside of the tower to Master Yen Sid's study at the top. The elderly Keyblade Master had summoned her for an urgent mission, but his communication had not gone into details. Of course, it wasn't the first time he had done so; the years spent in the World of Darkness had given her experience far beyond what the other Masters could claim, and it showed that she could resist the influence of the Darkness for a seemingly endless amount of time. For those two reasons, she was frequently summoned when they were dealing with something unknown.

She reached the top of the stairs and knocked on the doors, and Master Yen Sid wasted no time in inviting her in. They greeted each other, one Keyblade Master to another, and as she expected, he got straight to the point.

"Master Aqua. As the most senior and experienced of the Keyblade Masters, myself and the others on the council have a special task for you. We recently received strange reports from travelers passing by a world we've never had reason to visit before now. There have never before been sightings of Heartless, Nobodies, or Unversed on that world, yet suddenly it seems the Heartless have begun to appear there. Your mission is to go there, find out what has changed, and put a stop to any Heartless invasions. We have very little information on this world other than what I've already told you. Can you do this mission?"

She didn't hesitate; he wouldn't ask if it wasn't serious. "Yes, of course. I will put a stop to the threats, sir."

"Depart as soon as you can. The reports I have been receiving concern me greatly."

She nodded; she had anticipated his request and had already packed for a long mission. She sketched a short bow out of respect for his seniority, and then she turned on her heel and walked out of the room. It wasn't long before found herself sailing her keyblade to an unknown world. The council leaders had provided coordinates to the planet, but they had no concrete information on what she was supposed to expect there. She arrived at the coordinates and a fairly dark-colored world came into sight. There was a fairly expansive town with dull buildings around the top hemisphere, while on the lower hemisphere she caught view of what looked like a castle in ruins. She stored the information away in her mind and found a landing point.

She desummoned her armor and keyblade and observed her surroundings.

 **OOOOOO**

And what in God's name _were_ these things? Juste thought for what seemed like the thousandth time as he swung the Vampire Killer at the strange shadowy creature in front of him. With the cracking of the whip's tip, the pure black creature with glowing yellow eyes exploded into little wisps of darkness that quickly faded away, but it was quickly replaced by another. He had never seen them before, and as far as he knew, neither had any of the Belmonts before him.

It was odd; the creatures, which came in multiple shapes and sizes, were in no doubt dangerous. They had wicked claws, nasty little teeth that made a vampire's fangs look dull in comparison, while some even had tentacles and some form of magic. Others still had weapons and armor and worked quite well as a group. They were threatening certainly, but they weren't as... aggressive as one would think. They had attacked a number of people, but all the reports agreed that they gave up quickly, as though their victim didn't have what they wanted.

The entire thing was strange, but what was even stranger was the reaction of the Vampire Killer itself. His family's ancient weapon certainly finished the job as it had with thousands of others that were spawned from the depths of Hell itself, but he could not feel the righteous anger from it that he normally felt, nor was its attack as... flashy as it normally was. With the exception of Dracula, Death, and a few others, the creatures of the night died in a purifying fire when struck by the whip, but these... things did not. It was almost as though the whip itself was as confused as him.

Juste dodged to his left as he felt a pair of claws graze his leg. The damned things were fast, that was for sure; only vampires and some of the lesser demons moved at that kind of speed. A quick glance showed him that a large group of the small black monsters had surrounded him, so he returned the whip to its hook on his belt and summoned his magic. It responded eagerly to his call, and it fizzled across his skin and clothing, outlining him with a bright blue aura as he rose into the air.

"Hydro Storm!"

Water: pure, holy, and magical began to rain down all around him in great sheets. The creatures shrieked in pain and ran for cover from the burning liquid, but there was no place for them to hide, and they quickly withered and died under the attack. Not long after, the spell came to its end, and Juste dropped lightly to his feet. He paused to take a breath and look around, and he couldn't help the frustrated groan that escaped him when more of the creatures approached him.

They did not attack him immediately; he was clearly recognized as a threat now, and there was a brief standoff, before something else intruded on their senses. Juste's own senses perked up at the very distinct feel of a magical presence nearby, and whatever it was, the creatures apparently liked it, for as one, they turned and began to move towards it quickly. Some melted into the nighttime shadows around them, while others simply flattened to the litter covered forest ground and scuttled away. Intrigued now, wondering exactly what had their attention, and fearing for whomever it may be, Juste followed them at a run, hand on the Vampire Killer and magic at the ready.

 **OOOOOO**

Aqua took stock of the area quickly. She was in a heavily forested area, and she could see the lights of a town through the trees a short distance away. Deciding quickly that that was the place to start her investigation, she started towards it and reached it quickly. It was strangely empty; she didn't see anyone around, but there was light flickering behind closed shutters, and muffled sounds in the rooms beyond closed doors. But there seemed to be no one on the streets at night. She supposed this worked to her advantage, as she wouldn't have anyone questioning her, but it also meant she'd have to wait longer to see what manner of people lived in this world.

As she went farther into the town, she felt the darkness gathering nearby, and a large explosion of magical power as well. Thinking of her quest, she spun on her heel and set off towards the energies, summoning her keyblade. She didn't need to go far; apparently the Heartless sensed her arrival as well, for they quickly arrived before her.

As the first shadow formed from the ground, she was already swooping down on it, disposing of it immediately, a crystal heart rising from its body as it vanished. The shadows formed rapidly into more and more Heartless of different classes around her. She cartwheeled past a few as they swiped at her into a large group of them, and destroyed the lot of them with a well-placed Thundaga. She continued killing them, alternating spells and keyblade strokes, while a part of her mind wondered wildly why there were SO many of them. They must have been amassing here for quite some time.

Aqua caught a glimpse of something red and white in the corner of her eye as she brought down a Large Body with a hard cut from above, and turned to face it, pulling up an aura shield to protect her from Heartless attacks while she figured out what the new arrival was. She blinked as she realized the new figure was a man in a long red coat with long white hair. He looked rather more shocked to see her than she him, and she disregarded his presence for the meantime as her shield died and another Heartless lunged at her blade. She twisted to dodge it, and cast Blizzara on her blade as she spun, knocking out several more Heartless that had ventured too close. Hearts continued to rise and disappear as she vanquished the shadow creatures.

 **OOOOOO**

Juste couldn't help but stare in shocked surprise at the scene in front of him. A woman was standing in the middle of the field at the edge of town, whirling and striking at the black creatures with the most bizarre weapon he'd ever seen. Upon first glance, he wanted to call it a key of some kind, but it was unlike any key he'd ever seen. What's more, she appeared to be spellcasting through it, and while he was capable of using the Vampire Killer to channel some magic, it was nowhere near the level she was doing. She dodged, jumped, weaved, and flipped around and over her targets with a speed and grace that he would be hard pressed to match. Though the crowd around her was larger than the one he had dealt with earlier, she seemed to be keeping up with them very easily.

Shaking his head to clear it – he didn't have time to stop and stare – he ran forward to help her. A thought and a shouted command sent a pinwheel of fire racing across the ground towards the nearest group. It slammed into them head on, killing a few and scattering the rest. He unhooked the Vampire Killer from his belt and sent it whistling towards the survivors, killing them instantly. Another thought followed by a shout -

"Holy Lightning!"

\- sent bolts of electricity to arc out from him, honing in on any within range. The smaller creatures died instantly.

Several minutes later, the last monster fell under his companion's weapon – was that a _heart_ coming up out of that thing? - and the area fell silent. He shook his head to dispel the fanciful thoughtT before he returned the Vampire Killer to his belt and let his magic die down, while her weapon simply vanished in a flash of light. Then without a word, they turned to look at each other.

 **OOOOOO**

Aqua took the time as the battle ended to observe her new companion while catching her breath. He was certainly not that unusual in appearance, as several of the people she'd met in Radiant Garden had a similar look to them. His magic, however, was something new. Explosive and different, with unique names and unusual effects, it was certainly interesting. She had half a mind to figure out how it was done and learn it herself, if she could.

"Thanks for the assistance. I was surprised by the sheer amount of them. I haven't seen so many in one place in a long time," she said. "Can you tell me when they first showed up, or where they appeared? Any information you have about them would be helpful." She launched right into her mission. There was no point in wasting time when the problem was so great.

Juste had to repress a start; forward and straight to the point, something that he rarely saw in a woman. Even Lydie, his darling wife of four years, was rarely so bold. At any rate, he found it a refreshing change of pace, so he addressed her as a fellow warrior and monster hunter and answered her straight away.

"They first appeared about two weeks or so ago." he said evenly. "At least, that we know of. It's nothing unusual for monsters to spawn away from people and take a while to build up enough courage to approach towns and villages, so they could have appeared much sooner and we were just unaware of it. No one is quite sure where they came from, as they seemed to appear in multiple places at once. It was thought that they were Dracula's doing, but things have been quiet in the five years since his last attempt at resurrection, and his castle is in ruins. If it is him, I do not know what he could be planning."

Of course, he thought, it wouldn't be the first time that Dracula had managed to scheme from beyond the grave. His ancestor, Trevor Belmont, and his grandfather, Simon, could attest to that, but Juste had to admit to himself that the recent goings on did not feel like Dracula. Whatever was behind these things, it wasn't him.

Aqua's brow furrowed. "Dracula?" She vaguely remembered hearing that name in a book about various creatures born of darkness she had read as an apprentice living in The Land of Departure. Are there actual vampires here? That's certainly a new one, she thought. "Hm, do you have a map of the area? That would probably be most useful, and you can show me where exactly you mean."

Juste looked at her for a moment; he had caught the brief moment of puzzlement in her eyes and heard the confusion in her voice. Perhaps she did not know of Dracula? And if that was the case, where was she from, since everyone in Wallachia and the surrounding areas knew of Dracula and the threat he possessed. Some, a dwindling few, were alive during his last two resurrections, and remembered clearly the damage he could do. So for her to not know about him, she had to be from fairly far away.

"Certainly," he said in reply to her question, "If you will follow me, my lady?" He did not offer her his arm as he would have done with any other woman. He had the strangest feeling that she would have been insulted by the gesture.

He led her out of the field and into town and straight down the main drag towards a large wood frame structure that was guaranteed to still be open despite the late hour. He opened the heavy oak door and led his companion into a warm, well lit, tavern, populated by a few locals having a late night pint. He ignored all of that, however. His attention was on the figure behind the bar, and at that moment, the bartender looked up and saw him. His face split into a wide grin, a grin that was still marred by two pointed canines from his encounter with Dracula five years before. He wasn't a vampire, but he would always have the small fangs as a painful reminder of what he had only narrowly avoided.

"Juste!" his childhood friend, Maxim Kischine, shouted. "Come up here and have a pint on the house!"

Juste shook his head in amused exasperation; Maxim would never change it seemed. He ignored the other patrons staring at him and his lady companion as he walked up to the bar and sat down. The woman joined him, and Maxim wasted no time in shoving two tankards over to them.

"Who's your pretty friend, Juste?"

Juste paused in raising the tankard to his lips to take a sip. He sat it back down on the bar and looked at his companion in a silent question.

"My name is Aqua," she said, and smiled. The man reminded her a bit of Cid from Radiant Garden, whom she'd met only a couple years ago. This man seemed to have a similar attitude. She left the ale untouched without drawing attention to it. She wasn't particularly fond of alcoholic drinks, especially when she had an important task to complete. "And what is your name, sir?" she asked the bartender politely, her smile still on her face.

Juste groaned as Maxim turned on the charm full blast. Lydie had chosen Juste and married him, so Maxim felt as though he had to find him a woman quick so to catch up with his best friend. Part of him though was amused to see that the lady – Aqua – was completely immune to Maxim's charms, though she was certainly aware of them. She remained polite as Maxim introduced himself -

"Maxim Kischine at your service, m'lady."

\- but he interrupted his friend before he could do something that would get him hurt. Despite getting his ass handed to him by Juste's little sister on multiple occasions (Belmonts had trained their girls too since Desmond Belmont and his sisters, Zoe and Delores, to the horror of the town's residents.) he still had trouble picking up on the ones capable of stomping him without much effort.

He set his tankard down. "Maxim, we need to borrow one of your private rooms, and we need your map." The Belmonts had one as well, but his home was a short distance out of town, and he had the feeling that Aqua was in a hurry.

Maxim waggled his eyebrows, but Juste leveled a glare at him and shut him up before he could speak. "We're in a hurry, Maxim."

Aqua hid a smirk at Maxim's obvious attempt at charm and Juste's reaction to it. It was blatantly clear to her that these two were long-time friends. Maxim shook his head and stepped out from the bar. He gestured for them to follow him, and he led them into a small room for private meals and meetings, and he disappeared for a brief moment and reappeared with the map, which he laid out on the small circular table.

She accompanied the men to the back room and glanced about it to note her surroundings before turning her attention to the map. As she looked it over, she had to work very hard to hide her expression. This world was huge! If the map was anything to go by, they were in just a small section of this place, and it was clear that the land extended farther out than even this map showed, as this was primarily focused on the near region. She hadn't ever been in a world much larger than a city surrounded by wasteland, like Radiant Garden, before. This was just insane in proportions.

Despite her shock, she forced herself to pay close attention as Juste began to speak.

He pointed to their location on the map. "We are here in the town of Warakiya in Wallachia. North of us is the Carpathian Mountains, where Dracula's castle can be found. I do not know if the new monsters have appeared there yet since I haven't gone to check on things there. I intend to soon though. They appeared around every town and village nearly at the same time. We do not know their source."

Aqua frowned in thought."If they appeared everywhere at about the same time, then I'd have to assume someone is controlling them. Heartless don't hit everywhere at once on their own. They're not that smart. It's usually easy to track where they started from, unless they're following orders from someone. If you believe the castle is likely suspicious and related to their appearance, we should check it out soon. The longer we wait, the more damage they can do and people will be hurt." Normally she would insist that she do this sort of job on her own. However, she didn't know the area at _all_ , and Juste could clearly handle himself. She might as well make use of him if he was planning to head the same place she was.

Juste raised an eyebrow in question, and he caught Maxim doing the same from where he was standing by the door. Heartless? Apparently, Aqua knew something of these monsters, but whatever it was, she wasn't telling at the moment. He would have to get some answers from her as soon as possible; he was responsible for the people's safety, and he took that duty seriously, even though it had been nearly 700 years since the Belmonts had ruled over the land as a Barony.

"I agree." he said as he rolled up the map and handed it back to Maxim. "We shall head out in the morning. You, Miss Aqua, should get some rest. I will return home and ready things for our journey tomorrow. Maxim, I know I can count on you to keep watch over Lydie and Alexandra for me while I'm away." His friend nodded and gestured for Aqua to follow him out of the room, speaking to her about getting her a hot meal and a room for the night. A young lady staying on her own at an inn would raise a few eyebrows around town, but not near as many as her staying at the Belmont house, so the inn was the best for now.

With that, Juste bade Maxim and Aqua goodnight and departed for home. He had a family to spend some time with and preparations to make.

Aqua smiled politely as usual and accepted the idea of staying for the night, grateful that munny transfers over to the currency of each world visited, or else she'd be very uncomfortable if she had to rely on charity to get her by. Yet another useful commodity of being an interworld traveller. She preferred being able to pay her own way. She ate a quick, simple meal and departed from the common room to a small bedroom for the night. She wasn't exactly all that tired, as she'd set out only a handful of hours prior from her home world, but she recognized that it was quite late in this world, and she was beginning to feel the exhaustion of the earlier drawn-out battle setting in, so she decided to just call it a night anyway. She'd be able to start out tomorrow fully recovered. She took a quick inventory of her items before stowing everything carefully away and climbing into bed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Megavamp24 - Aaah, that would be a no. In KH souls keep the body animated, and are separate from hearts, which hold emotion and memory. Which is why Nobodies can move, act, and think, but not feel.**

 **2.  
**

Juste urged his horse into a trot as he rode into town the following morning. The sun was just peeking up above the horizon as he rode in, leading his sister's horse behind him. She had wanted to come along, but being pregnant prevented that. She had cheerfully agreed to allow Aqua to borrow her horse for the journey, which Juste was glad of. Her mare was a battle horse, bred and trained from a foal to stand up to nearly anything without spooking and to fight viciously when attacked. Nearly everyone in the Belmont Clan had one. The mount would serve Aqua well during their six day round trip.

Slung over the back of each horse was a bedroll and two saddle bags. To the outside observer, that may not seem like much, but Juste had long ago perfected space enhancing spells in preparation for Dracula's eventual revival. He had them on the inside and outside pockets of his coat, which allowed him to carry far more than he would be able to normally. To that end, the saddlebags were stuffed with food, cooking utensils, and various other objects they would need along the way. Weight reducing spells were also applied so the horse would not have to bear any more weight than necessary.

The upcoming journey had him nervous; whatever was behind these Heartless, it had to be something or someone powerful. If it was Dracula, then that meant he had somehow acquired more monsters to send at the towns and villages in his quest for vengeance. If it wasn't him, then they were dealing with an unknown, which was even worse. He would have to get answers from Aqua and soon.

Aqua was waiting for him outside the tavern already. It was a lovely morning, after all. She crouched next to the building, off to the side and out of the way, petting a friendly stray cat as she watched the time go by until Juste arrived.

When he got closer, she noticed him-and more importantly, the creatures he was riding and leading. Her face paled. "I...don't really do horses..." she mumbled.

Juste gave her a strange look as he dismounted from the saddle. Everyone knew how to ride a horse in the region. It was a necessity, and it just further confirmed his feeling that she was from nowhere near the area.  
"Do you know how to ride at all?" he asked, careful to keep his voice neutral.

"Not a horse," she replied simply. "Nor anything remotely horse-shaped."

Where was she from that she didn't need such an important skill? Well, too late to worry about that. He moved over to his sister's horse and beckoned her forward. "Well, it is not hard to learn. Let me show you, so we can be on our way."

She'd read about first time riders forced to go long distances. It made her extremely glad that she could just Cure the muscle soreness away by the end of it. "All right then, if we must."

Juste got right down to business. "Later on, once we've stopped for the night, I will be able to teach you had to put the saddle and bridle on, which is also very important, but for now we'll focus on just getting up there and moving."

With that, he showed her how to mount up by putting her foot in the stirrup ("Left side of the horse means you use your left foot.") and pull herself up by the horse's mane. ("Don't worry, it won't hurt her."). Once she was seated in the saddle, he showed her how to direct her using the reins and her knees. Thankfully, she was a quick study, and soon, she was riding around the square. Once he was assured that she wasn't going to topple from the saddle, he mounted his own horse and rode along side her for a few more rounds.

"Got it?" he asked her. "Think you're ready to go?"

"Yes, let's just move on. I've wasted enough of our time already," she admitted easily. She hadn't planned on this whole thing but, well, at least she could say she could ride a horse the next time something like this came up. It was a little less intuitive than her glider, since the horse is a living creature with a mind of its own, but at least it – _she_ \- was used to following orders, so Aqua managed to muddle along well enough.

"Let us be on our way then." Juste replied as he directed his horse down the main road, which ran north-south through town. For most of the trip they would be on a major road, but about halfway there they would have to take a detour onto a little used trail to take them to Castlevania.

At least it was a beautiful day to start out on, he thought as they rode north towards the Carpathian Mountains, which could just barely be seen on the distant horizon. The sky was clear, the temperature was moderate, and a light breeze ruffled his hair, which he had tied back. Soon, they would be back under the forest canopy and would lose that breeze, though the shade would be some relief. The day would likely be a warm one.

Aqua was behind him, so he kept an ear on her in case she fell from the saddle, though he doubted that would happen. She reminded him a little of himself in that once something was learned, it was _learned_ and it would stay with her for the rest of her life. Hopefully, if they ran into any trouble on the road and had to run for it, she would be able to stay on at full gallop.

Pulling back on the reins a little to slow his horse down, he allowed her to catch up with him, and once they were riding abreast of each other, he spoke.

"So, what all can you tell me about these creatures that have been appearing?"

"What have you gathered about them so far? I'll go off of that."

"Not much, I'm afraid. They are vicious, and they come in many forms, but they don't seem very aggressive. When they attacked you was the most aggression I'd seen from them thus far. They come out at night as well as the day, and don't seem to fear the sunlight at all, though fewer of them are seen during the daylight hours. Those like myself that are attuned to such things can feel the dark power rolling off of them, though it is unlike anything I have ever felt before. They also seem to generate cold temperature around them, though not as cold as other creatures I've dealt with in the past.

"Anyway, the thing that puzzles me the most about them is that my family's whip does not hurt them as much as I would expect. It was made to kill such creatures, and normally it kills them instantly, aside from a few. To these things, these Heartless that you've been talking about, it only kills the weakest instantly and merely wounds the rest."

Feeling that she has a good enough grasp on horse riding to make a short demonstration, she lifted a hand from the reins and summoned her blade. "Heartless can be banished by other weapons, but only a keyblade like mine can destroy them permanently. They are the most effective weapons against them. I'm not entirely sure why, but keyblades have a special power to them that makes them much stronger than most other things. Having a heart filled with light allows them to be wielded against the creatures." She desummoned her blade to regain hold of the reins.

"Heartless are, simply put, created from the darkness in people's hearts. Emotions like fear, anger, and hatred allow them to form, and if the emotion is sufficiently strong enough, a Heartless can be formed, stealing that person's heart. The stronger the darkness, the stronger the Heartless. It's why they're called Heartless-because they lack their own hearts." She paused in her narrative, noting the man's strange look. "What is it?"

"Hearts?" he said in confusion. What was she talking about? "The heart simply houses the soul, other than that it is simply a muscle for pumping blood. How can it have darkness?"

"What? Now I'm confused. I don't mean the actual organ, it's more of a crystalline thing. Um, do you remember seeing them when I destroyed the Heartless before? Whenever a keyblade destroys a Heartless, it releases the stolen heart."

Aqua's words only increased Juste's feeling of confusion. Something was not right here. "I certainly did see that, and I have never seen such a thing before. We refer to the heart frequently in sayings and such, but that is only because when you are hurt emotionally, your feel physical pain around your heart, due to the soul being held within. I have never before heard what you are telling me."

"Er, well, we don't usually talk about the soul where I'm from. When you feel heartache, it's because your emotions are tied to your heart. Are you saying that you don't have the sort of heart I'm talking about?" If Juste was confused, so was Aqua. How can someone not have a heart? How can a soul be where all the emotions of someone or their personalities are held? It simply didn't make any sort of sense.

"My dear lady, I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me here, but of course emotions are tied to the heart. The soul, the source of emotion, resides there. The soul is hurt, and it transmits that distress to the area around the heart as real pain. People have died of such things before, which is why elderly couples often pass away within a year of each other, sometimes in mere weeks, or even days. The injury to the soul weakens the power it can use to keep the body alive, and the pain it causes to the heart injures it as well, greatly increasing the risk of heart failure."

"No, that's the heart. The soul has nothing to do with it. In fact, it's a largely debated concept over whether the soul or spirit exists at all. Heart, mind, and body, those are the components of a person," she argued.

Juste brought his horse to a stop suddenly, which prompted Aqua to do the same. Was this woman out of her mind? It was madness she was speaking, and being overheard by the wrong people could get her executed as a heretic!

He leveled a serious gaze on her. "The soul has _everything_ to do with it." he said firmly, and he cut her off when she went to say something. "The soul is the source of your life, your emotion, it contains your memories, and when you die it moves on to Purgatory to be judged. It is the source of magical power for many, and I know this because I have seen Dracula and his ilk rip the souls out of living beings and use them as a power source! Now watch what you say, Miss Aqua, unless you would like to be executed by stoning or worse, burning, by those in power." He cut her off again. "And before you say anything, you _have_ a soul, Miss Aqua. I can see it as I'm looking at you. Its light is dim, but it _is_ present."

"Okay, clearly we've got completely different concepts here. I knew this would come up eventually but I was hoping to avoid it as long as possible. However, we're going to get nowhere fast if we don't come to some sort of consensus, so hopefully this will allow us to find some sort of compromise."

Aqua was rather unsettled by his determination and damn near condemnation on this subject, and decided they would get no further unless she admitted where she was from. She took a calming deep breath before continuing. "I'm from a different world. I'm not just from far away. I'm not even from this -planet-. And before you go off on me about how that's just not possible, you're just going to have to believe it. If there's something I can do to convince you it's true that I haven't already done, by all means let me know." Her eyes dared him to challenge her on this.

He just looked at her. "That's blasphemy you speak." he said, just barely managing to keep himself from snapping.

"Oh, we are getting nowhere," she grumbled, rolling her eyes. "You know what, give me a second." She jumped off the horse, rolling neatly after she stumbled upon contact with the ground. Being on a horse for a few hours does give one a strange walk at first.

She stalked toward the tree line, summoning her keyblade along the way. She issued a blast of light toward the sky, alerting any Heartless in the area that she was near and quite ready for them. A few shadows began snaking along the ground between the trees, forming near to her. She quickly dispatched them, waiting to see how many were drawn out. It was broad daylight, and the shadows were pale and scattered, so not many were in the area. She paused, allowing the last few to cluster around her. She blasted one with an easy Fire spell and snatched at its heart as it rose from the smoke left behind. Unfortunately, she missed and it floated past her reach and disappeared before she could catch it. She cast Gravira on the next one, wondering if the increased gravity would force the heart to remain longer to give her more time to grab it. However, the spell had to wear off before the creature would be destroyed, a strange little side effect of the magic, so she had to wait.

In the meantime, the other Heartless, this one a Soldier, came at her in a Cyclone, which she blocked, and followed up by freezing it with a stronger-than-necessary Blizzaga. What could she say, she was a bit ticked off at the moment. The Heartless shattered, the ice fragments releasing its heart. This one was slower than the other, perhaps because its casing had been frozen, and she did not waste the opportunity. She captured it and held onto the heart gently but firmly, not wanting to damage it. The Gravira spell finally broke and the Heartless expired, the heart floating away rapidly. No matter, she had one now. She returned to Juste, and presented the heart to him.

"Now do you see? Do be gentle, it belongs to someone somewhere."

He gave her a strange look before he looked at what she was holding in her hands. It was completely unlike a real physical heart, more like the symbol he sometimes saw in books and other writings to represent it. It seemed to glow with its own light, though that light was dimmed in the bright sunlight, and it sparkled like a jewel. Without thinking about it, he reached out to touch it but hesitated.

"It's fine. They are captivating, aren't they?" she said with a smile. "You can take it. Just be gentle. It won't float away unless it has nothing holding it back. A fairly light hold would suffice." She reached up a little further to hand the heart to him. Once she passed it over, she remounted her mare and watched Juste with the heart.

Juste stared silently at the... thing is his hands. Being magical always made one more in tune with emotions, his own and those around him, so he could faintly sense... feeling coming from the heart. A sadness, wistfulness, and a longing for the comfort of home and family, and he abruptly looked away and let go of it, unable to bear having it in his hands any longer.

"I... see." he said in a low voice.

"You seem to be very familiar with souls, so tell me: are they different things? Do you not have hearts like these?" Aqua asked.

"I have never seen those before in my life." Juste said quietly as he stared ahead without seeing anything. "The soul... shines like a brilliant light around the person it belongs to. Children and those pure of spirit have the brightest light, while those that have corrupted and given into evil are darker. Dracula's soul is nearly pitch black. A soul that is free of the body appears as a bright point of light very briefly before it vanishes on its way to be judged." He looked at her. "Your soul's light is a beautiful silver, but that light is dim, as though it was weaker than it should be. My daughter's soul can outshine the sun, while my grandfather's was, before he passed on, similar to yours, only much brighter."

"When the soul is lost, the body usually dies immediately, sometimes very painfully. Other times, it may live on for a short while, but there is no emotion, no light, no _life_. There is only a mere existence that continues on until the body runs out of the energy it needs to sustain itself and dies. A person with a wounded soul may act very strange. Their emotions will be dulled, and they will be tired quite often. The only thing to do is to avoid doing anything that may strain the soul while it heals itself."

"I see," Aqua commented softly, pondering the information. "What you said about light and darkness in a person's soul? That's how I see hearts in another. I can see the darkness in a person, and if that darkness has too strong a hold, I know that they are a threat and usually, I take them out. Very few hearts are pure light, however, so those that are pure are special and hold an unknown power if they are gathered together. Most people carry a mixture of darkness and light within them. It's only if it becomes too dark that it becomes a problem.

"In my world, and every other world I've been to until now, hearts are the core element of our beings. Our memories are not in them, but our emotions are, and those are really a major part of who we are. Without them, we can exist on an intellectually high level, but to be incapable of feeling anything...it makes us incomplete, and we long for our hearts so we can feel again.

"When our hearts are removed, through a surge of dark emotions that takes over our hearts or by a keyblade, the hearts attract the darkness and often become a Heartless' core. But the shell, the body left behind, if the person had a strong will in life, will continue to live on without a heart. They remember everything about their previous life, and what it was like to have emotions, but they can't feel them anymore. They simply feel a pervading emptiness. These people without hearts are called Nobodies. They are entirely capable, and some of them are unbelievably powerful, but without hearts they feel a deep desire to become whole again, and that can lead them to do terrible things when led astray." Aqua fell silent, thinking about Xehanort and all the harm he had caused them for so many years. Due to this line of thought, she added, "There are a select few who are able to control the darkness within them, and use its power without falling prey to it and losing their hearts. And these are the most dangerous, because that line is perilously thin. Walk too close and the darkness will overtake you without mercy. But those who can control it are capable of much pain and evil."

"I suppose that will not change no matter where you go then." Juste said with a faint smile, choosing to ignore the whole thing about her being from another world for the moment. It was too much to think about right now. "We have those here too, the ones that give into evil and darkness for whatever reason. Some do it for the purest of intentions; they want to protect someone or prevent an evil person from harming others, but it is indeed a slippery slope, and it is easy to slide past the point of no return. I pity those that fall in such a way and hope they can be destroyed before their soul is beyond redemption.

"The ones that I fear are the ones like Dracula, who gave into the darkness in the name of vengeance, the ones that have corrupted their soul possibly beyond all chance of saving it. So powerful is Dracula's evil that he will not stay dead. Six times now he has resurrected, and I was only barely able to prevent a seventh, and it nearly cost me my best friend and the woman that would become my wife.

"I am aware of darkness and the terrible toll it collects on those that fall to it and those around them, Miss Aqua. I am aware all too well. For nearly seven centuries, my family has held back the dark, and we will continue to do so for as long as necessary."

Aqua suppressed a shiver. What if Xehanort had been like Dracula? It was too frightening a thought to even consider. His body jumping ability was enough like resurrection as to be a close resemblance, and she didn't want to wonder what would happen if Xehanort had bridged that gap before he was finally eliminated. "I've experienced an enemy of a similar nature. We only recently managed to defeat him at last, at great cost to our friends and family. I can't imagine what it must be like for your greatest threat to continuously revive himself."

She paused before changing the topic. "Anyway, I was sent by the council back home to investigate the reports of an unusual surge of Heartless from this world that travelers have passed on to us. We have never been to this place before, likely due to the complete lack of Heartless here, which I now realize is probably because you don't have hearts like we do, so they have nothing to gain from you. I was chosen because I am a Keyblade Master, one of only a handful of others, and I am the most senior and experienced of them all." King Mickey and Yen Sid were both on the council, and deemed too old to really be of much help in undiscovered worlds. The king had a world of his own to rule as well. "It's hard going in blind. No one knew anything about this place, and I had no idea what I was even meant to look for aside from a source for the Heartless, which is as vague a concept as any." She sighed. "I am grateful for all your help thus far, really. I understand you're doing this for your people, but your assistance is of great value to me as well. It's my duty to protect the people of every world, and no one is less important than another. I do enjoy discovery and exploration as well, of course," she added, smiling.

Juste was grateful for the subject change, and he couldn't help but smiling a little himself. "Well, we Belmonts are always magnets for trouble. Anything of a dark nature that stirs in this area goes directly for us, because we are the biggest threat, which is why my house is warded to Heaven and back. Anything of an unpleasant nature that tries to get through will get a very nasty surprise. Now, shall we be on our way?"

"Of course," she agreed, and they spurred their horses onward. As they continued traveling, Aqua commented, "You know, your form of magic is very interesting. I'm one of the best spellcasters I know, but I've never seen anything like it. Do you suppose it's something others with magical potential can learn?"

Juste frowned in thought. "I am not sure, but I am going to go with probably not. My magic is inherited from my ancestor Trevor Belmont, and his wife, Sypha Belnades. Then again, it does tend to favor girls over the boys, so maybe that is why it's not very common, since the girls are heavily outnumbered within the Belmont Clan for some reason. I am the first boy to be born with such high magic levels.

"Trevor had _some_ magic, but the most popular belief for that is that he was the unacknowledged grandchild of a powerful vampire that had a great deal of magic itself. No one knows for sure if that's true though. Most of the family magic, including mine, comes from Sypha." He looked at Aqua. "Would you like to try anyway though?"

"That would be fantastic. Regrettably, we should probably wait until we take care of whatever is behind the Heartless army," she said, looking truly sad about the delay. Aqua was many things, a voracious scholar of magic among them. "Of course, should we come across Heartless to defeat on the way, a crash course in applied practice would hardly be amiss," she grinned.

Juste laughed. "I'll see what I can do for you, Miss Aqua. Of course, your own form of magic is very unique. Is that part of being what did you call it? A Keyblade Master?" The pair rode into the deep forest that surrounded Warakiya, and the thick canopy cut off the sunlight, submerging them into a deep gloom that at night would be impossible to see in.

"Some of it is, but basic magic is something that non-wielders can also have a talent for. I know of several skilled mages back home that can't use a keyblade. As for me, the keyblade mostly strengthens my inborn abilities and gives me new applications for them." She viewed the change in scenery with slight distaste. "You'll want to be on your guard. With such shadows around us, there's bound to be Heartless within," she warned, keeping sharp eyes on their surroundings.

"Yes," Juste replied quietly, "Keep your senses open. Dracula's minions also like to linger in dark areas. It makes it easier to pounce on their prey without being seen. The horses will also be able to tell when something hostile is near, so pay attention to them." Thankfully, at least, the road was still wide enough for a wagon to pass through, so they had more than enough room to ride side by side: Juste on the left and Aqua on the right. By some unspoken agreement, Juste watched the left side of the road and the path ahead of them, and he could see Aqua keeping close eye on the right side and the direction they had come from.

"I've never fought vampires before, but I should hope that my weapon will be equally effective against them as my keyblade is meant to protect the light and defeat the darkness." Her eyes continuously scanned the area, and it was of little surprise to her when she eventually caught sight of shadows prowling in the woods beside them. "You know, I probably should've clarified this before, but Heartless are drawn to both hearts and the keyblades. I'm not entirely sure why, but it's a known fact. So as I am apparently the only one with a heart in this world, as well as a keyblade, I'm practically a homing beacon for them. So I apologize in advance." She summoned her blade before using it to direct a Firaga spell more accurately at the shadows beside them. The fireball splashed upon the ground, the flames catching several Heartless in the vicinity. Those who were not instantly killed still suffered burns.

"Try not to set the forest on fire, if you please Miss Aqua." Juste said in a dry tone as he followed up her attack with another Hydro Storm. It had the dual effect of killing the remaining Heartless and putting out the fires.

She had just enough time to shoot him a scathing look before he cast his spell, which immediately gained her attention. "I wasn't going to let it go anywhere. Water and ice magic are actually my strongest points."

He continued, ignoring her irritation. "And you shan't have to worry about vampires much. Most vampires are very territorial and will kill any younger ones that come too close, and many are too terrified to come near Dracula anyway. Dracula has a child, but that child has nothing to do with him, so he is not a threat. No, you must watch out for the demons and animated corpses that are under his control."

"Oh, lovely, demons and animated corpses are definitely on my list of creatures I most want to deal with today," she responded sarcastically. "Anything else I should be aware of so I can put it on my attack card?" She mentally equated her list of things lining up to kill her to that of a ballroom dance card, and it was getting remarkably full.

Juste gave her a sideways look. "This may sound personal," he said hesitantly, "but... do you have someone that is near and dear to you that is male?"

She frowned in confusion. "Most of the people in my field are male, so most of my friends are male. Why is this important?"

Juste found himself waffling back and forth for a moment, before he just decided to forge on ahead. There was no delicate way to word such a subject as far as he knew anyway. "There is a particular kind of creature that works for Dracula, and we're not sure if it's a demon, a vampire, or some hybrid of both."

"Okay...I assume you're going somewhere with this?" Juste was doing little to clear up her bewilderment.

He sighed. "Simply put this demon, vampire, whatever it is, does not feed off blood like the rest of its ilk do. Instead it feeds off of..." He swallowed. ".. sexual energy."

She blinked repeatedly, swallowing that information. "Oh! No, I have no one like that, and I'm not interested in any of them that way. Please tell me that makes a difference," she said quickly.

Juste allowed a small sigh of relief. "It will make it harder for them to ensnare you, but they can still make it work. I speak of the succubus and the incubus, the former is female, while the latter is male. They specialize in illusion magic, and they will cloak themselves in magic to appear as someone you care about. Since you are female you will likely be targeted by an incubus, but if a succubus is desperate enough, she will go after you as well.

"It does not matter if you know full well that your friends and family are safe at home. When you see that illusion, you _will_ believe that it is them standing there. They put off a powerful allure that is difficult to resist. They rarely kill their victims, but once they have you, they will keep you ensnared until you either manage to break free on your own, or someone kills them."

"Mm...then they'll probably take on Terra's appearance. He's my best friend. Our history is complicated. It will be hard for me to break free if they ensnare me." Her eyes darkened slightly. Complicated...that was one word for it.

Oh, there was definitely a story there, Juste thought as he caught the look in her eyes. He had to admit that he was mildly curious, but since it was none of his business, he changed the subject. "Dracula _might_ have another vampire working with him, but that is doubtful. If we do encounter one, aim for the head and heart, and use fire magic." He gave her a sardonic smile. "Vampires are very _flammable_."

"Fantastic, an easy weakness." Aqua smiled as well, grateful for the subject change and also pleased that she in particular would have a great advantage against vampires should they happen to come across one. "So what exactly do you expect to find when we arrive?" she inquired, curious as to what could be there.

"Honestly, I have no idea. I don't expect to find Dracula there in the flesh, at any rate, and I expect that the castle is still in ruins, since we would _know_ if it were standing once again. But since it is the first place to check when strange things start happening..." He trailed off and shrugged.

"Indeed, the most suspicious place is where you should start a search. And about how much longer do we have to travel? I'm certainly feeling my inexperience with riding," she admitted. They had been on the road for hours by now. She couldn't remember how long he'd expected the journey to take, and she knew her riding lesson this morning had slowed them down a bit.

He gave her a sympathetic look. "Three days, two nights. It makes me grateful that I've been able to ride since I was three."

"Well, this'll be fun," she said, rolling her eyes. She was grateful that she had an all-purpose healing spell to take the majority of the ache off. "Generally, if I can't walk or run somewhere, I'll take my glider. It's much faster and a great deal easier."

"Glider? What is that?"

"Um, well...it's sort of like a sled that floats in the air instead of on the ground, and it's made out of metal. It moves by magic, more or less, and controlling it is a lot more simple than a horse since a horse has its own mind. I can show you when we get to a more open area than this forested path if you'd like," she offered. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't offer, but she'd already revealed her otherworldly status, so it wasn't like this would really make a difference. "It's advanced technology. I can't really explain it myself."

"I will hold you to that. At any rate, we don't have long to go for the day. I want to have camp for the night set up by the time the sun is set. Setting up in the dark of this place will be difficult, so we have to be ready before then."

"Yeah, it's dark enough now that I can hardly imagine what it'll be like come nightfall," she agreed, before she decided to change the subject. "So, I remember you said something about a couple people to Maxim last night. Your family?" Aqua knew family was nearly always a good subject for people. Most were very happy to talk about their wives or kids.

Juste smiled fondly, and part of him thought that he must look like a love sick idiot, but he didn't care. "Yes," he said, "I have a wife and a daughter, and my wife is pregnant with our second now."

"Congratulations!" she exclaimed. Birth was always something of a wonder to her. There was something about babies and young children that Aqua always found awe-inspiring. "What are their names?" She couldn't quite recall what he'd said the night before.

"Lydie is my wife. Alexandra is my daughter. If our second is a girl, we're going to name her Lydia; if it's a boy, we plan to name him Richter."

"They sound lovely. Have you been married long?" Probably not, she thought, but not all couples have children right away.

"Four years. We married a year right after..." Juste stopped himself; now wasn't the time to be bringing that up. He looked to the west and saw the sun beginning to descend rapidly towards the horizon. "I believe it's time to find a suitable place to camp for the night."

Aqua realized there was probably a long story behind that when Juste cut himself off, so she readily let it go. She nodded. "Certainly. There looks like there might be a clearing off to the side up ahead. Want to check it out?"

"Certainly." He urged his horse into a trot, and reached the spot quickly. He looked it over and pronounced it suitable by the time Aqua caught up. "This will work well, I think." He slipped down out of the saddle and dropped lightly to the ground. "Do you need assistance getting down, Miss Aqua?"

She gave her body a quick once over internally. "I think I'll be okay if I move slowly. I can cast a heal to take care of most of the soreness too once I get down." She carefully swung a leg over to the other side and steadied herself with the saddle and mare's mane as she lowered herself down. Gods was she ever sore. A long day of nearly nonstop riding was extremely hard on a newbie. Her legs shook and she felt like she couldn't stand properly. Keeping her free hand on the horse, she cast a quick Cura on herself without summoning her blade. No need to attract more Heartless when she could use magic without it anyway. She felt the magic soothe her muscles and cool the skin where it had been rubbed raw beneath her leggings, and she sighed with quiet relief. "Thank God for magic, my life would be so much harder without it. I'll be fine now. I believe you planned to show me how to care for the horse's tack?" Now that she was healed, she turned her attention to the tasks at hand. "Or should we set up camp first?"

"Camp first." he said quickly, slightly amazed at her healing magic. He had a healing spell himself, but it took a great deal to cast, and it was limited in what it could do, which forced him, like many Belmonts before him, to rely on healing potions. Hence why he had spent so much time and effort as a child and young teenager trying to perfect space expansion spells.

He quickly unhooked one side of the reins from the bridle and used the resulting leather cord to tie his horse to a tree with a locking halter knot, and he was pleased to see Aqua doing the same. She certainly paid attention and caught on quickly. "I assume you've had to set up camps before? Am I correct?"

"Yes, that much I've done before," she confirmed with a certain amount of sarcasm. "The transportation was new, not the whole questing and journeying thing." She reached into a pocket hidden by her skirt and pulled out a basic Tent, which quickly expanded as soon as she brought it to the outside air. She set it up easily a safe distance from the centerpoint of the clearing where she knew a fire would be.

"Impressive, I think your space expansion spells are better than mine." Juste commented as he rummaged around in his pockets for a particular knife and a healing potion. "So are you ready for your first "crash course" as you put it in an applied practical of my type of magic? To see if it's possible for you to use it? Or maybe to see if your type of magic can do the same?"

Her eyes lit up. "Of course!" she exclaimed, now paying rapt attention.

He gestured her over to join him in the center of the clearing. "Come stand over here with me." Once she had done so, he directed her to look around the entire clearing. We are about to create two wards, one as a warming in case anything meaning to harm us comes too close, and one that will actually attack anything that tries. Do you have wards where you are from?"

"Not exactly. Aero can be sometimes be used to create a swirling wind around you that shields you from physical attacks for a short time, and I have a special block that creates a sort of bubble shield around me, but both of those are temporary, and I can tell what you're suggesting is not."

"What we'll be doing here is temporary as well, since it will only have a bit of blood and power to anchor it. Permanent wards, like the ones that surround the homes of the Belmonts, have anchors that charge by slowly drawing in the ambient magic over time. As long as they don't draw faster than the ambient magic is replaced then they will stand strong unless their anchors are destroyed or something overpowers them. They will also absorb any magic thrown at them and use it to strengthen themselves. It would take a great deal of power thrown at them at once to damage them.

"But for now, we just need something to last us the night; the next rain will wash them away. Wards are all about intent and proper placement. Most do not need any actual spell to be cast. You use your blood and your power to create it, so you give it instructions when emplacing it and order it do as you tell, and it will obey, because it comes from you. Do you understand so far?"

"Theoretically, yes, I follow. I'm not sure about application though. We don't really have any sort of 'blood magic' in my world. Everything is basically element-based, with the exception of Cure and Stop spells. So I'm more or less understanding this at an entirely academic level." Aqua recognized that this sort of magic was completely different from the kind she had always used, and it added more doubt to the idea of her being able to learn and use it herself. She wasn't going to give up hope, though. She wasn't considered one of the best magicians of her time for nothing.

"Most blood magic is frowned upon, because it has very few good uses; this is one of the few. Just don't tell anyone that you used it. For that matter, don't tell anyone that you use magic at all. I believe we should use all the gifts that God gave us, but many consider magic to be the work of Satan, so keep your knowledge and use of it to yourself, for your own safety."

She frowned at that. Magic was a part of her, and she couldn't understand why it would be seen as something wrong. The more she learned about this world, the stranger it seemed. She agreed however; it was better to keep quiet about such things than to draw attention and cause friction with the locals. Besides, as an interworld traveler, she was supposed to stay out of the daily lives of the people anyway. "Very well, I can follow the logic of that."

He smiled at her, relieved that she had agreed to keep quiet. "Anyway," he said briskly, "back to business. Wards can take any shape, but the ones that have fewer corners are best. The more corners you have, or in the case of a circle, the less you have, the more anchors you need. Squares are best as they give you the most area for the fewest corners, though the amount of space within the wards is restricted by the anchors. The larger the space, the more anchors you need. What I need you to do is look about the clearing and imagine the box. Try to line up the corners with objects that are across from each other and have a direct line of sight to each other. You can't use a spot halfway up a tree trunk and then use a rock at ground level. They have to be level with each other and have an unobstructed view."

"In other words, if you're not on flat ground you're basically out of luck?"

"Not entirely, as long as the ground isn't too hilly, and that's only a problem if you're trying to ward a large area. For a small area like this, unlevel ground is not as much of a problem. So look at the clearing, and find the square's corners for me."

Aqua swept her gaze over the clearing again, sketching out a square as best she could in her mind. Geometry hadn't been her best subject back when Eraqus had trained her but neither was it her worst. She pointed to each object as she identified it. "That tree there, that rock, that rock, and that scraggly looking bush thing over there." She looked up at him quizzically when she was done, hoping she'd chosen well.

Juste nodded at her choices. "The rocks will work, as will the base of the tree. However the bush will not. Can you tell me why?"

"Because comparatively, it's not as well-grounded as the other points?" she guessed. In all honesty, she had no idea, but that was the best she could come up with. The rocks were heavy and quite set into the ground, and the tree was large and clearly had deep-running roots. The bush was easily torn out in comparison.

He shook his head slightly, a little disappointed that she had forgotten the second requirement. "The leaves could block the line of sight and collapse the ward, if a breeze were to spring up, so you have to find a different object."

"Hm. I'd thought that the base of it was far enough below the leaves that it wouldn't make a difference." She glanced at the nearby area. "Would that tree to the left work then? The angle isn't quite right but that's the closest object in the vicinity."

Juste looked at what she was indicating. "Yes, I believe that will work fine. Now that's the square for the inner attack ward, now we need to create a larger square for the outer warning ward, and it has to be to be a fair size to give us fair warning before the inner ward is triggered. Once again, I need you to find the square."

"And line of sight still applies?" We're in a forest, that could be rather more difficult, she thought.

He nodded. "Mmmhmm." He had already picked out markers for the second square, but he hoped that she would find them on her own. Good observation was key in wardings.

She turned in slow circles around the clearing a few times, determined not to miss any of the requirements this time. She disqualified several trees before she found markers she thought might do. "That oak to the north there," she began, pointing to further identify what in particular she was looking at. "The rock in the west, the maple in the south, and this other oak in the east."

Juste gave her a proud smile, the same smile that he had once seen on the face of his magic teacher, his cousin, Annie Belnades, when he was a boy. It was a smile he hoped to bestow upon Alexandra in the future. "Very good, those are the ones that I'd spotted as well." He walked up to the maple tree that she had indicated and once she had joined him, he showed her the silver athame that he had removed from his pocket. It was a doubled edged athame with a silver blade, and a black hilt covered in intricate silver designs in the shapes of a large dragon. Even the individual scales were visible, and it curled around the handle, with the end of the tail curled upon itself to form the pommel. It had been a gift from a grateful Wallachia after Trevor Belmont had put Vlad III in his grave permanently. "I want you to gather your power, as though you were preparing to cast a powerful spell. Once you have done that then, with this knife, I will lightly nick the tip of one of your fingers, and then you will use the blood to mark the tree at the correct height. While you do that, _think_ of what you want the ward to do, and command your power do warn you if anyone crosses it. Do so now."

She ran his instructions over in her mind once more, making sure that she wouldn't be distracted by forgetting what she was supposed to do in the middle of things. "Down at the base here, near the root?" she clarified, and he nodded. She let her eyes close halfway, as she consciously summoned the power she normally used without thought. She proffered her hand to Juste, and didn't flinch when he pricked her skin. She was used to far worse things, after all. She pressed the cut to the trunk as she concentrated on the idea of a shield to protect and warn her of anything that crossed its borders.

Juste smiled as he watched his new student at work. He could feel the power sizzling in the air around her, like a barely contained thunderstorm, and when she touched the tree with her bleeding finger, he could feel the magic flowing from her through the small cut he had made. There was a brief flare of light, and he looked around for a moment and opened his senses wide to determine if anything unsavory had noticed it, but there was nothing in the vicinity but them. After a second, the light faded, the flow of power ceased, and she stood up, trembling just a little.

"Are you all right?" he asked in concern. With her high magic levels, he had expected for her to not have any trouble, but she was clearly unused to doing such magic.

"Magic...comes easily to me. It's completely intuitive at this point. I never have to consciously call it forth to cast my spells. It just flows. So this...this is very different for me." She takes a mental diagnostic. Her magic levels had taken a definite hit, and her body felt the loss of power. "I don't think I'm supposed to expend quite so much magic to do this. I used a lot more power than was likely necessary. That will take getting used to. I never have to apply my magic consciously, so I probably poured far more out than I should have, that's all."

"Do you want to try a second one? To see the effects, or would you rather go do something less intensive?"

"I'd like to see what this accomplishes, so yes, let me continue. I'll use less power this time, so it should be fine." She moved on to the next mark, assuming he'd follow after. She did the same thing as the first time, though she called forth half as much magic this round. She hoped it would still be as effective.

Juste couldn't help but smile again when she stood up to face him. Already he could feel the new ward shimmering into place between the two marks that she had created, though it was invisible to the eye. He quickly stepped to the right, which caused him to pass through it.

"Do you feel it?"

She shivered from the magical response to his passage. "Oh that is weird. It would certainly wake me up were I asleep. So it serves its purpose. Now, is the blade used important? Or is it solely reliant on blood, placement, and intent?" She knew the knife he held was unique but she didn't know if that was important or not.

"Somewhat. Silver carries magic well, and it's harmful to many creatures of the night. It also acts as a purifier, which is why it's favored for ritual instruments such as this athame. If you were under the effect of a corrupting influences that I could not detect, you would be very reluctant to touch the blade, and if you did touch it, it would burn like fire. Only the most powerful of the creatures of the night, like Dracula and Death, can resist silver. In cases like them, something more powerful is needed." He patted the Vampire Killer affectionately and felt a faint rush of affection in return from it. "It's also rare and expensive, which is one of the reasons why this blade was such a precious gift."

He looked over Aqua with a critical eye. "Why don't you go get the fire going? I doubt you're up to warding the entire clearing, and that must be done quickly. I'll finishing the warding, and then I'll make us some dinner while you take a break."

She nodded, accepting both the information and the suggestion. "Don't go getting yourself killed while my back is turned, now," she joked as she returned to the middle of their camp. She collected wood around the campsite and lit the pile in the center with an easy flare of magic.

Juste laughed quietly as he made short work of the wards, though he had to erase her markers to place his own.

"Our magic may not be compatible." he explained when she looked at him questioningly. "If it was, however, we could put down some powerful wards. The ones around my home were cast jointly by Trevor and Sypha, which is part of the reason as to why they're so strong. Joined magic can also allow some devastating magic attacks." She nodded in understanding, and he nearly laughed again at the obvious curiosity in her eyes. He had a feeling they would be exploring joined attacks in the future.

Once the wards were done, he moved the horses so they were within them and then removed the saddles and saddlebags. The bridles he left on to tie them up with. He would show her how to saddle in the morning. He then removed what he would need to cook a simple meal for the two of them from the bags and moved over to the crackling fire.

Soon he had a skillet of ham and eggs sizzling away, while Aqua lazily used a toasting fork to toast bread. They would use the fresh food first, and then they would move onto the preserved meats and dried vegetables. They had enough to last the entire trip, but if it came down to it game was plentiful in this area.

"Perhaps we can try this joint magic sometime in the future," Aqua suggested as she turned the bread over. "It could be interesting to see what happens if our magic overlapped."

He nodded. "I agree it is something to look into, but probably not now. Who knows what would happen if we were to try it out here. It would likely attract attention, and if it went wrong, it could be devastating to the area around us."

Aqua nodded in understanding and after they ate, she fell silent and took to staring into the fire, as if she could see the fate of the world within its flames. Stories and experiences floated through her mind in the quiet moments, and she wondered if she should find something to say.

Juste kept quiet once the meal was done, sensing that his new companion had things on her mind. Instead he made short work of the dishes (Being able to conjure water was a godsend sometimes.), before he made a quick check of the wards to ensure that everything was functioning properly before bed.

Aqua watched him move about the clearing, and once he had returned to his spot on the other side of the fire, she decided to start talking, if only to make her feel like she has less weighing on her. "You know how I said my history with Terra is complicated? It's because he... Well, when he and I took a test of sorts with our master to see which of us was suited to receive the Mark of Mastery, I was declared a master but not Terra, because he had resorted to using darkness when he lost his temper. I want to clarify that he is a really good friend of mine, we grew up together, and he would never use his abilities to hurt anyone. But...he fell prey to the manipulations of another master who had come to watch our exam, and began to give himself over to the darkness without realizing what was happening. When this master, Xehanort, left, Terra and I were instructed to attend to a new threat between the worlds and find Xehanort as well to make sure he knew about the danger we'd just learned of, and our younger friend Ven took off after Terra. Our master sent me to go find them, to bring Ven back and to keep watch over Terra so I could let our master know whether he was suited to be given the title of Master after all based on his actions. We chased each other all across several worlds, as things just kept getting worse."

Again, Juste kept silent, sensing that this had been looking for a way to get out in the open for a while. He moved over to sit on his bedroll and waited for her to continue.

"Along the way, I let my assumptions get ahead of me and starting suspecting Terra of doing terrible things just because I knew he was associating himself with the darkness. Even though I knew him most of my life, and knew that's not the sort of person he was. By the end of things, Ven sacrificed his heart to destroy a being called Vanitas, and Terra was possessed by Xehanort, the mastermind behind everything that's ever gone wrong in my world, and I had to fight him to try to get Terra back. And I found out later that I had failed anyway. I got lost in the Realm of Darkness after I'd saved Terra with my own glider, and was trapped there for 10 years, though time didn't pass the same way there. Ven was in a sort of comatose state for that same length of time, safe where I'd put him in our homeworld, which I remodeled to protect him using my late Master's keyblade. And Terra...he was lost within Xehanort, a prisoner in his own body. It took everyone so much effort to fix everything. We were so, so lucky that our scientifically minded friends were able to bring Terra back and mend Ven's heart enough for him to come back as well. It still astounds me everything that we've gone through to get to where we are." 'And I'm still alone,' she added silently.

"Sometimes your closest friends are the ones that you can hurt the most, without even really being aware that you're doing it." Juste said quietly. "The important thing is that once it's all done and over with, you still have each other and you've learned never to make those mistakes again."

"It's a damned miracle we _do_ have still have each other!" she spat out almost viciously. "Terra was nearly lost for good, and Ven's heart was so fractured it was likely he'd never recover either. What did any of us do to deserve going through such hell? All because of Xehanort's obsessive compulsion over creating another Keyblade War! None of us are the same and we will never fully recover from what we were put through. None of us asked for this, and none of us deserved this. None of us had a choice."

"Believe it or not, I do know how you feel, Miss Aqua." She gave him a disbelieving look. "What? Do you think the life of a vampire hunter was something that I chose? From the moment I was born until I leave this life for the next one, I will always be looking over my shoulder. Always wondering when Dracula will rise again. Always praying that this time he does not attack those dear to me. The Belmonts always pay for our duty, sometimes not directly, but we must pay something, sometime. All of it was foisted off on me because I was the one chosen to wield the Vampire Killer, a legacy that was born because my ancestor swore vengeance against a close friend that betrayed him in the worst possible way. A man in his grave for over six hundred years made a decision that still haunts his descendants today, and we will never escape from it. It has cost us much over the years.

"Most of the clan avoid the consequences. It is only the ones that carry the whip that must bear the brunt. Trevor was exiled as a mere child by superstitious idiots who feared his power. Christopher had his son stolen and kidnapped by Dracula. He rescued the boy, but the child was never the same. Desmond and his two sisters had their parents murdered by Dracula's followers when they were still children. My grandfather, Simon was cursed, and for eight years he lived in agony with wounds that would not heal until he was able to dispell the curse." He went silent and closed his eyes.

"I guess we're all broken somehow," she said softly, a sad smile on her face. She didn't ask what he had gone through, though she knew that he'd dealt with something. She knew, as he did, that if he wanted to talk about it he would, and if not, there was no reason to ask about it.

He returned it. "Indeed." He laid down on his bedroll and stared up at the tree canopy above. "I was named heir when I was four, which is extremely rare. Normally the heir is named when he or she is in his or her teens. The whip just... responded to me so well, like it had chosen me. Grandfather said that it does that sometimes; it chooses the next heir. I had a good childhood, and I had time to run and play and just be a normal child, but I also had so many lessons to learn. Combat with a whip is very difficult, and it takes years of practice to master, so Grandfather was pleased that I had an early start.

"I met Maxim and Lydie when all three of us were six or so, and we quickly became inseparable. Maxim thought that all of my training was the most amazing thing, and he begged to join in even though he's not a Belmont and cannot use the whip. I never noticed as the years went by that he was jealous of me, and that worsened when Lydie chose me over him. He thought he could wrest control of the Vampire Killer from me, and.. it didn't end well. The whip is blood bound to the Belmont Clan – not even a distant relative can safely use it. Someone that is of no relation had no chance.

"That was the final straw for Maxim. He left on what he claimed was a training mission, and he was gone for two years. I worried about him, but I could not leave the area to search for him. Dracula's castle had resurrected, and I was on my way to investigate when I met Maxim. He was dazed, confused, and he couldn't remember the last two years. He insisted that Lydie was in danger, so I followed him to where he said she was.

Juste closed his eyes. "I should have known something was wrong when he led me straight to Castlevania. I found out later that, in an attempt to prove himself, he had tried to do what Grandfather had had to do to break his curse. He had tried to revive Dracula and defeat him, but Dracula is no mere man. Even from beyond the grave, he can take possession of any fool that opens themselves up to him. He possessed Maxim, and that was enough to revive the castle. He would have eventually resurrected at full power if I hadn't been able to break the possession. I still had to fight him in wrath form, and I am so thankful that the whip is effective against a disembodied spirit as well. Dracula was banished, the castle crumbled, and Lydie, Maxim, and I returned home. Lydie and I married a year later, and we're still close friends with Maxim, but there are times that I wonder; what price did I have to pay? I escaped with my life and my friends' lives intact, and Lydie doesn't even remember being in the castle at all. I didn't pay then, so when will the bill come due, and how much will it demand?"

"That's a heavy weight to bear, knowing that something terrible will come for you but having no further knowledge about it. I'd like to say that the worst is behind me and my friends with Xehanort gone, but...who really knows what else is yet to come?"

"Indeed, there is no way for us to know. Only the Almighty knows, and He does not fit to tell us His plans." He sighed. "Well, the morning comes early, and we still have many miles ahead of us, so we'd best get some sleep." He sat up and quickly took care of his nighttime ritual, which included his usual prayers, though this time he included a request that he and Aqua get through their journey safely and that Maxim, Alexandra, and Lydie be kept safe in his absence. After a whispered: "Amen," and after crossing himself, he kicked off his boots and climbed into his bedroll, lying with his back to the fire.

Aqua listened to his murmured prayer with a bemused expression but did not interrupt. She understood the concept behind religions but did not follow any herself. She was neither raised in a religious family, nor did she ever see any reason to convert to any religion she read about. She knew prayers and the ideas of gods were a comfort to some people, but as for herself, she never had any desire for such things. Her fate was entirely up to her, the things that occur simply occurred. She didn't believe there was any divine interference that set obstacles in her way or removed them. As far as she was concerned, anything that happened was just a fact of life. Whether she could overcome such events or not was also solely upon her, and she was content with that.

Of course, that wasn't to say that she didn't find such things interesting. The thought processes behind those who fervently pray to some higher being were things she didn't fully understand, and that made her want to figure them out. She might not come to agree with any of these different beliefs, but she could appreciate their value to others. She found the great variety of religious traditions fascinating, and it always struck her as strange that every religion claimed it was the only true one, yet there were so many religions out there. How could any one be the only correct one when there were so many people who worshiped different gods?

Still, she observed Juste in silence as he followed what was surely a nightly ritual, and resolved to ask him about it later. It was sure to be a touchy subject, as she had already seen his reaction to the talk of hearts as opposed to souls and the existence of other worlds, which he had deemed blasphemous, but she wanted to know. And the only way to do that was to jump into the fire and ask about it. However, since it was already late, she knew that it was not the time to ask about it now. She would find a convenient time to ask him about his religion sometime the following day. After coming to such a decision, she followed Juste's lead and retreated to her tent to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

As was normal for him, Juste was awake as soon as the first rays of sunlight began to peek over the horizon. He sat up in his bedroll and pushed his hair, which had come loose from its tie, out of his face. The forest clearing was still dark, and a fine mist covered the ground. He shivered slightly, and the urge to lie back down and snuggle into his blanket for a few more hours was very tempting.

But they had places to go, and hunting creatures of the night made one not want to waste valuable daylight, so he forced himself to get up. He quickly slipped his boots back on, brushed and retied his hair, and then he got started on breakfast. The smell would no doubt rouse Aqua soon. He quietly sang a little folk song about Vlad III to himself as he cooked and smiled when it made him think of Alexandra and how she loved to hear her Papa sing. She loved to hear hear her mother sing too, and she often tried to sing along with them as best as a two year old could.

They had about a half a day's journey before they would turn off the main road onto the side path that led to Castlevania. It would then be another day and a half, plus one more night, before they would reach the bluff that overlooked the castle. Juste was fairly certain that they wouldn't find Dracula there; these Heartless did not feel like him.

Unless of course he was working with someone else.

He shivered suddenly at the thought, but a quiet sound from Aqua's tent made him break off his thoughts and look up.

The soft sounds of movement outside her tent woke Aqua immediately. She quickly opened her senses to figure out what was nearby before remembering that she was in a new world, searching out the Heartless root with Juste. She was so unused to traveling with anyone that she'd forgotten all about it. Relaxing again, she remained lying down, resting, for a time until the scent of food persuaded her to face the day. She fixed her clothes and finger-combed her hair into submission, then exited her tent, collapsing it in the process and fitting it back into her pocket so that she would have that already done when they were ready to proceed. "Good morning," she commented absently.

Juste looked up from the fire. "Good morning," he said cheerily. "Did you sleep well?"

"I did, though I admit I woke up startled because I'd forgotten that I was camping with someone. I usually travel alone," she said, smiling as she voiced her slight chagrin. She sat nearby while he continued to prepare breakfast. The flames licking the sides of the pan were a welcome warmth. The morning was slightly chill, but the clear sky she could just glimpse through the plentiful leaves above promised that it would warm up as the day grew older.

Juste smiled slightly at her admission, but he chose not to comment on it. "It looks like it will be a good day for riding," he said instead, "but we have to be careful. Weather can get hung up behind the mountains and spill over without any warning. Keep an eye on them and let me know if you spot anything." He turned the sausages over, which sent their tantalizing scent spiraling up from the pan. "We have a half a day's ride before we turn off of this road. We'll probably stop for lunch right after."

"Sounds fine, and I'll certainly keep watch for signs of weather. I visited an ocean once, and while sailing a storm came out of absolutely nowhere, so I can imagine it happens elsewhere." She had visited the world containing Atlantica once, and rather than dropping into the 'under the sea' portion, she found herself in the land kingdom. The prince had insisted on taking a ship out to sea, and she'd accompanied him. Happily, she discovered she didn't get seasick, but unfortunately, she didn't escape getting repeatedly drenched by a sudden storm.

Juste laughed. "I've only been to the ocean once, and nothing my parents did could convince me to get on a boat. I refused to put my feet anywhere but solid ground." He dished up the sausages, eggs, and toast and handed her a plate before taking a plate for himself. "My sister thinks I'm insane and wishes we lived closer to it."

"To each their own, right? I don't mind the ocean, but it's not really where I feel most at home," she commented.

"I agree. I prefer the mountains and forests, and since we have to pass though Ottoman territory to reach it, those of us from this area tend to avoid traveling to it anyway." His face darkened at the thought of their hated oppressors. "We're currently under their control right now as it is, but that is no reason to push things. So far they've left the Belmonts alone, but I'd rather not call their attention to me or my family."

"Of course, I can understand that." She may not have known what group he was talking about, but wars and oppression were universal.

"'Tis a shame that Vlad III had been so indiscriminate is his killing, or Trevor would have been better suited to let him run loose. The man that so hated the Turks in life and fought against them with everything he had killed more of his own people than them in death."

Aqua remained silent on this matter. She didn't know anything about the history behind the people and events he spoke of, and as such she felt it more pertinent to withhold any opinion. Wars weren't exactly something she usually involved her in; the fight against Xehanort was the only exception as it threatened many worlds and many people she loved.

Juste glanced up at her, surprised that she was not peppering him with questions. He knew that he would have been had their roles been reversed, but no matter. He finished his breakfast, quickly took care of the dishes, and began to pack up. He repacked the saddlebags, saddled his horse, and then slung the bags over the back of the saddle. He then rolled up his bedroll and strapped it down as well.

He then called Aqua over and showed her how to saddle her own horse. She picked it up quickly, and once that was done, he summoned a little water and erased his ward markers, so he wouldn't get notifications of it being crossed when they were a good distance away.

"Are you ready to go?" he asked Aqua as he turned to look at her.

"Yep," she agreed easily, and swung up onto her saddle much more smoothly than she had the day before. She was extremely grateful that she was a fast learner because it minimized the amount of embarrassment and clumsiness that she'd have to deal with otherwise. She was also grateful this horse was an obedient sort; Juste warned her that some horses liked to trick their riders when being saddled and would hold their breath when the saddle was cinched so that it would be too loose when they exhaled, and the rider would slide off in the saddle.

After they'd resumed traveling for a short while, she decided now seemed a good time to ask her questions she'd formed the night before. "So, last night before we went to bed, I heard you praying, right? Would you mind telling me about your religion? I find theology fascinating and it's interesting to hear different perspectives."

He gave her a sideways look. First she didn't know about souls, and now she doesn't know about Christianity? What next? Will she ask him if this is all to the world or if there is more?

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

"Well, what kind of god do you worship? What does he or she or it look like? What are some major stories that everyone in your religion teaches their children? What sort of traditions or rituals do you uphold?" she released a barrage of questions. "I find all religions interesting, but I don't know much about many of them because there really are so many. The scholar in me really wants to learn though. Religions define cultures which define people. Knowing about someone's religion can tell you more about a person, as well as help prevent terrible misunderstandings, like those we've already had."

Juste blinked at the torrent of questions, and he sat there silently in the saddle trying to process it all. "What do you mean what kind of god? There is only one, and no one has seen Him. No mortal can see the face of God. He is everything, all encompassing, the source of all of this." He waved his hand vaguely at the area around them. "He knows all: He sees all. He is the one that loves and protects us, yet He will not hesitate to smite those that oppose Him and those that worship Him. He grants me the power to destroy those that stand against Him, but I am fully aware that to anger Him could cause Him to take it away from me." He reached up and placed his hand over where his cross was hanging from its chain under his breastplate and shirt. "He is... everything to those that believe. We have fought for Him, bled for Him, died for Him, to protect what He has created against those that would twist it to suit their own purpose. He has given me everything; my life, my lovely wife, my best friend, and my daughter, and soon hopefully, He will see fit to bless my wife and I with another child to love." He looked at Aqua to see her looking at him with interest. "Do you understand that, Miss Aqua?"

"I suppose so. It doesn't sound terribly complicated. But what about the people that don't believe in your god? How is that handled?" Aqua inquired. She knew that many religions don't take kindly to those who don't believe as they do, and has to wonder if Juste's god is the same.

This woman could really pick the hard questions. "That... " he hesitated. "That depends on who you ask Yes, there are other religions with different gods and beliefs, and some are more tolerant than others. To my sadness, most of my fellow Christians are intolerant of others, and many outright hate those that do not follow the same practices. Even though I share their disdain for other beliefs, I try to avoid hating on others. The Ottomans would see us all wiped out though, so many Christians, Catholics, and Jews in this area try to keep the hostility to a minimum for our own safety. While we fight each other, those damned Muslims could sneak right up on us. It is preached that we shouldn't hate each other, that only God Himself has the right to judge, but it is hard not to when such attitude has surrounded you since birth."

"Hmm..." she hummed, considering his words. "I take it there are multiple religions in this one world then," she murmured, mostly to herself. "Your god is kind and loving, yes?" she asked, inferring such a thing from what his god had supposedly given Juste in his life. "And I would assume then that such a god would promote kindness and love to all people, regardless whether they believe in him or not, is that right? Then why would so many of this god's followers be intolerant of others, if one of the main characteristics of their god is love and mercy?"

"He is kind and loving," he replied, "most of the time. Angering Him... Sometimes He punishes those who anger Him right away, other times, He waits a while. And yes, He would prefer we act like He wants, but those who carry His word are human, Miss Aqua, and like all humans are subject to human flaws, like arrogance, spitefulness, and greed. It is also very hard to be tolerant of other god's followers when those said followers have attacked and sacked your homeland countless times over the past several hundred years."

"True, I suppose I can understand that," she conceded. "So tell me some important stories that make up your religion, like your creation story, or an important event that you tell your children about as they grow up," she requested.

Juste smiled slightly at the reminder of Alexandra. "Well, I can't tell you much there, since she is so young still, but I can tell you the stories that my parents and grandparents told me." With that he proceeded to tell her the story of Adam and Eve, and he found her interest endearing. It was nice to have someone that didn't know about these things, but was genuinely curious about it. He then moved on to the story of Noah and the flood, followed by the story of Moses, and then onto the birth of Jesus, as well as his life and death.

Aqua couldn't help objecting to the story of why humans now had sin on their souls. "Wait, let me get this straight. So your religion's etiology for why there's evil in the world and why women go through so much pain when it comes to reproduction is because she ate a fruit? She ate a fruit that God told her not to, and so the entire human race is forever doomed to struggle and go through pain and all that, because of a -fruit-?" Her indignation could not be more apparent. "Not to mention the story makes it sound like it's all the woman's fault, when the man could have just said no when she offered it to him. And he turns and blames her for all of it even though he is equally to blame."

"She was specifically told by God, not to touch something." Juste said firmly as he leveled a glare at her. "She did so anyway; do you think that He would have allowed that?"

"All right, fine, I concede that she should be punished for that, more or less. But to curse all of her future descendants for the choice that she made? That's hardly fair. At least Pandora's Box made more sense," she muttered, thinking of all the Greek Mythology she managed to learn last time she visited the Olympus Coliseum. "And you said that Jesus' death saved humanity from that 'Original Sin', so then why do women still suffer such pain from childbirth? Why must we still struggle so hard just to live in this world? Since this 'Original Sin' that Adam and Eve brought unto the world is lifted by the Savior dying on the cross, why aren't the effects of the curse gone?"

"Only He can answer those questions, Miss Aqua. Perhaps you should ask Him."

"Perhaps I would if I thought he would speak to a nonbeliever like myself. As far as I can tell, gods only speak to their followers, and even that is debatable. I don't believe in any particular god. Religion has never really been a part of my life, and I've never seen a reason as to add it since. Besides, how can I possibly choose which god to follow when they all claim to be the one and only?" she commented sardonically.

Juste gave her a patient smile. "It doesn't matter if you believe in Him, because He believes in you. Speak to Him, let the words come from your soul, or your heart if you prefer, and He will hear you. He may not always respond, but He will be listening. As to your other question," He shrugged. "Again, you have to ask Him for that answer, but who is to say that they are not all the same god, just in different guises?"

She looked up thoughtfully. "You know, I've wondered that on occasion, if all gods from all religions are really all the same one, just seen differently by each culture. I'm rather surprised to hear the possibility voiced by a devout believer such as yourself, though. Most people are simply certain that their belief is the only one that is true, and won't listen or consider any other alternatives, even those that still present their god as the true one. They are right, and anyone who thinks differently is wrong. Such rigid thinking can be a great barrier to people who might want to learn more about religion."

"Sadly my father-in-law and mother-in-law are like that, and it's something that I can prevent them from giving to their grandchildren. Lydie thankfully believes the same as me, but when you've been touched by true evil like the two of us have, it... makes you a bit more patient in regards to what others consider evil."

"It makes you more patient? Wouldn't it make you less, because you know what true evil is and they're so far from it?" Aqua questioned, but then she thought of her own situation. Maybe she interpreted his answer a bit incorrectly. Through her experiences with Terra, as well as others that were part of the war like Riku, who could use the darkness without falling to it, she had learned to become more flexible where darkness was concerned. Perhaps that was what Juste had meant.

He saw the understanding dawn in her eyes. "People tell me the Turks are evil, but I disagree, in regards to most of them anyway. There are some that I'm sure will be taking the direct route to Hell once they move on to the next life, but the rest of them aren't too bad. I loathe that they have dominion over us – I would be lying if I claimed otherwise there – and they have wreaked so much havoc on the people here, but they have nothing, _nothing_ on Dracula, and they know it. I think that's why they haven't bothered the Belmonts, because they know we are holding him back."

"So does the whole of your world know about Dracula, then?" Yet another subject that sparked her curiosity had come up. She knew next to nothing about vampires or Dracula beyond what she'd read in the book back in Master Eraqus' study, and who knew how accurate that was in comparison to the reality? She wasn't even certain whether that book existed in this world.

"Not the entire world, no. So far he has been unable to spread his influence too far beyond this area. It doesn't help matters that there are actually two Draculas, and most people from beyond this area that know of Dracula only know of Vlad III, who was once the ruler of this region back during Trevor's time. He protected us from the invading Turks until he was betrayed and beheaded, and not long after he resurrected as a vampire. We still do not know who turned him or how, since beheading is fatal to all but the oldest, most powerful vampires. There is no way a newly born vampire could have survived it, and it is impossible to turn someone once they are well and truly dead."

"I don't suppose it could be genetic somehow?" she suggested dubiously. "I mean, I know there are places where things like magic can be both inherited from relatives or come from absolutely nowhere. I don't suppose vampirism could work like that?" Ah, and now she knew why this Vlad III had come up before, since he had apparently become a vampire. She'd missed the undertones of that before. Implicit meanings were difficult to pick up on in new worlds, especially when the world rules were entirely different from what she was accustomed to.

"Vampires can have children just as humans can, though that is uncommon. They can have children with humans or other vampires, and the other Dracula has a son that was conceived in such a way. But no, Vlad III's parents were completely human. He went by Dracula because his father took the name Dracul – which means dragon – as a surname, because he was a member of the Order of the Dragon. So naturally, his son took the name Dracula, which means son of the dragon.

"There is a possibility that he became a vampire out of sheer force of will and his burning hatred for the Turks. He was raised a prisoner by them as a child to keep his father in line, and there were rumors... that he... suffered while in their care. They released him to take the throne, and he spent his entire adult life fighting them. I've been told that someone with enough hatred in their soul can become a vampire or even a demon if their will is strong enough, but no one knows if that is true.

"At any rate, once he turned and rose from his grave, Vlad III began killing anyone that crossed his path, be in man, woman, child, Wallachian, or Turk. He didn't care; he killed them all. Part of that could be blamed on the transformation itself. Very few vampires keep their original personality upon turning, and it was made worse that Vlad apparently had no master to look after him and keep him in check. Young vampires normally stay in the care of the one that created them for a number of years until they are old and strong enough to take care of themselves, and until they have gained enough self control to not go on a killing spree, like Prince Vlad Dracula did.

"So as much as he was loathe to hunt down the one that had given us so much, Trevor had to chase our prince down and put him back in his grave. He wrote in his diary that the prince asked for release, even while attacking Trevor, and when Trevor was able to bring him down, Dracula died with a peaceful look on his face. He has been still ever since."

Aqua listened carefully, but she was almost overwhelmed by the history of this matter. "That seems rather problematic. I don't even know what to say about all of that. How likely is it that Dracula could rise again? And this Trevor you spoke of, is he a predecessor of yours?"

"Prince Vlad Dracula is dead for good; he will never rise again. The other Dracula, the one my family has faced multiple times, rises on average twice a century, with his second rise always being within a decade of his first rise. I am not sure when he will rise next, since I stopped him from fully resurrecting five years ago, so I have no way of knowing if that counts as the first or the second time. 'Tis a shame that we can't find a way to destroy the Crimson Stone and end his resurrection cycle, but we haven't had any luck in that regard."

"As for Trevor, yes he is one of my ancestors. He lived during the 15th century, and rumor had it that he was actually the grandson of Dracula – the vampire, not Vlad III. We know that his mother was the Belmont, that she already had Trevor when she married, and that her husband took her name instead of her taking his. He also adopted Trevor and raised him as his own son. Trevor was the first to face Dracula and the first to defeat him."

"I see..." she said, trailing off slightly as she tried to orient all the information in her mind. "Actually, no, I don't see. I'm getting lost. How did the not-Vlad Dracula get here, what's his origin story? I'm having trouble keeping them straight."

"That is a long tale, perfect for such a long ride." Juste gave her a rueful smile. "Dracula was once human. He was born as Mathais Cronqvist in the year 1062. His family was an old one, a magical family that could trace their ancestry back several hundred years, and they were nobility. They owned a great deal of land and ruled over it under the authority of the land's king. When Mathias was 14, his parents took in the newly orphaned son of another lord after his parents were killed by a fever. That child was my ancestor, Leon Belmont.  
"The two were raised together as brothers, and by all accounts they were inseparable. Their friendship stayed strong as they grew into adulthood, even when Leon assumed control of his own family's lands and no longer could spend as much time with his old friend."

"So this Dracula is actually from centuries _before_ Vlad III? Well that's confusing. Can't wait to hear why he didn't become a problem until so many years later."

Juste shifted in the saddle, which made the leather creak. "Marriage among the nobility, then and now, is all about making connections and securing your family's wealth and power. If you manage to fall in love with the person chosen for you, good for you, otherwise, you just have to bear it. Magical families that hold noble titles are no different, but Mathias was lucky in that his parents knew that magic had a way of... telling you things. When he was in his teens, he met Elisabetha Lindgren, and they were immediately drawn to each other, and they quickly fell in love. His parents recognized that it was magic itself nudging him towards her, and they quickly arranged a betrothal. They married when he was 19, and she was 16, and from Leon's surviving diaries, the marriage was blissful, with the two of them hopelessly in love with each other."

Aqua nodded, and waited for him to continue. She wondered what this had to do with the story.

"Of course, even with the church's stance on magic being the work of Satan, many magicals, including the Cronqvists, still worshiped our God, and Mathias was no exception to this. His faith was strong, his love for Him was greater than even his love for Elisabetha, so when the call came to try and reclaim the Holy Land from the Turks, Mathias and Leon went without question."

It never ceased to amaze her that men could feel a greater love for a being they would never be able to see or even contact in a meaningful, mutually responsive manner, than for their own family. She felt that love for one's family and closest friends should come before anything else, even a god. But then, she didn't believe in any, so what did she know?

"The pair were gone for months, and when they were finally able to return home, Mathias found to his horror that his beloved wife had passed away from illness during his absence." Juste frowned in thought. "It's been speculated that Mathias and Elisabetha had formed some sort of bond. Magic can do that if at least one member of a couple is magically powerful enough, and it would explain Mathias' reaction to her death.

"His grief simply destroyed him. With her gone, it was as though he had died with her. He became bedridden, and nothing anyone did could coax him out of it."

Aqua frowned in sympathy. "That's terrible. I've never heard of anything like that sort of magical bond between people, but it's well known, as you said yesterday, that older couples often pass away close together."

"It is. I can't imagine what life would be like without Lydie for me, so I do sympathize with Mathias for that. At any rate, life carried on around Mathias as it is wont to do. Leon continued to fight in His name and visited when he could. He was also betrothed though, and while his feelings for Sara Trantoul were not as quick to grow as Mathias' had been with Elisabetha, what he felt was no less real. He was delighted to have her and truly in love with her, when disaster struck.

"Sara's family's home was attacked, and she was abducted. Leon, in his search for answers as to why and who, ended up visiting his old friend. Mathais was still bedridden, but he was able to tell Leon that a vampire was in the area, and that he was the one who had taken Sara. Now, I can see that you're seeing the problem with this." Juste commented when he saw the look on Aqua's face. "I will be the first to admit that Leon was woefully naive and too trusting at times. That Mathias knew such information, when he supposedly hadn't been out of his bed in a year, sounds suspicious to us, but Leon never doubted him. He ran straight for the vampire's castle to try and save his love."

"But why take her? Was he jealous of Leon, that he still had his love? And how did he become this vampire that attacked her to begin with?"

"He didn't. Mathias had this grand plan to spite the god that he had once worshiped, a god that he now believed to be wicked and selfish. Mathias had devoted his entire life to Him, only for Him to steal away the one Mathias loved most. At least, that is how Mathias saw it. He had used his family's knowledge of magic and alchemy to create the Crimson Stone months before, which had slowly turned him into a vampire. By doing so, he hoped to spite God by never giving Him his soul and defying Him in any way he could.

"But Mathias had another problem to deal with. He was a vampire, but a young, weak one, one without a master to protect him, so he needed some way to gain power quickly. He found his solution in another vampire in the area, one that was much older and more powerful. The Crimson Stone works by using the soul of a vampire as a power source, so Mathias convinced this other vampire that kidnapping Leon's betrothed would be a great way to liven up his rather boring eternal life. He did this, knowing full well that Leon, whose naivete was only matched by his skill in combat, would successfully defeat this vampire, which would allow Mathias to claim his soul and imprison it in the Crimson Stone."

"Ah. I see," Aqua responded.

"Mathias' plan worked exactly as intended. Leon defeated the other vampire, Mathias claimed his soul, and he offered Leon a chance to join him. Leon spat in Mathias' face, called him a wretched fool, and refused. Mathis then basically told his most powerful servant that he could have Leon for himself, and then he left. Leon of course survived the battle, and then he swore that he would never forgive Mathias for what he had done and that the Belmonts would forever hunt the night." Juste shrugged. "And here we are, nearly 700 years later."

"Hm..." There were still a few things she felt she was missing, but she couldn't find a way to word them, so she let them go for the moment. She got the majority of the story anyway. "What year is it here, by the way? You mentioned 1062, and 700 years later, but I have no way of knowing exactly what year it is."

Hearing about the Crimson Stone, which was evidently what allowed Dracula to resurrect intermittently, she wondered what would happen if she were somehow able to take it off world. What would happen if his resurrection stone was placed in space? She didn't yet voice these thoughts, however.

Juste gave her another strange look: now she was asking about the year? "1753, or the mid 18th century, if you will."

She caught his look and just rolled her eyes at it. "You still don't accept that I'm not from this world?" She sighed. "Well regardless, the point is that Dracula was first fully destroyed about 300 years ago, and has resurrected approximately 6 times or so since, then?"

"Would you if you were me?" he asked, and then he continued on without giving her a chance to answer. "I honestly don't believe that it is possible to fully destroy Dracula without first destroying the Crimson Stone. He resurrected three years after Trevor and his wife defeated him, in 1479, and then he resurrected again 1546, and then again 1561. Those times he was defeated by Trevor's great-great grandson Christopher Belmont. He next resurrected in 1661, and then again in 1669, though that resurrection was brought about by my grandfather, Simon Belmont, because it was the only way to destroy the curse that Dracula had cast on him in 1661. His last resurrection attempt was five years ago, in 1748, but that was stopped before he could fully manifest in this world."

"Does that make it more or less likely that he'll return again soon?" she asked, more out of habit than actual concern. If it so happened that Dracula was the cause of the sudden Heartless insurgence, then so be it. However, if he was not, then he was not Aqua's problem to deal with, given that he's been taken care of time and again by this world's occupants. Her basic curiosity compelled her to find out more about this threat, but she knew that it wasn't her responsibility to handle.

"Honestly, I don't know. Sometimes he resurrects under his own power; sometimes his followers give him a boost. There is no way to know when he will come back. From the papers that my ancestor, Leon Belmont, left, Dracula was quite the genius in life, so there is a possibility that there is a reason to all of this, but if that's the case, only he knows about it."

"Followers? You mean the undead creatures you mentioned yesterday?"

"Sadly no. Dracula has living, human followers that worship him as some kind of dark god. They have been known to speed things along on occasion, and Dracula has been proven to be able to influence people from beyond the grave as he did with Maxim. His 1479 resurrection was brought about by him influencing one of his former generals, and helped along by a curse that he cast as he was dying at Trevor's hands. The curse caused famine, heresy, and violence in its wake, and it caused men's souls to be consumed by darkness and evil. The entire intent was to get one to fall to the curse so completely that he could take control of their body and use it to resurrect, which is ultimately what happened. His own general, a loyal follower is there ever was one, fell victim to the curse and was taken."

Aqua hummed softly as she quietly absorbed the new historical information. This world had such a long and detailed past. She could barely imagine it. Most places she'd been to until then had no more than a couple hundred years of history, and much of it wasn't talked about often. It was rare that she heard so much. Granted, she _had_ asked for it. "Sorry, part of the curse was heresy? Would you mind explaining what you mean by that?" Of all the things to be part of a curse, why heresy?

"Of course. Good, honest, hard working, God fearing men and women, people who wouldn't dream of even taking the Lord's name in vain, turned their backs on Him and stopping following His word. Much of the violence was spread by these poor souls, as many of them committed many evils while under the curse's power: theft, murder, witchcraft. From the journals that Trevor wrote, it was a terrible, dangerous time to live, and it was ultimately why he and Sypha warded the Belmont lands."

"Strange...so it was sort of like mind control or brain washing then? Odd that something of that nature could be spread like a plague. I understand why he did it though, since he hated his god so much at that point. What better way to send a 'screw you' message to heaven than by taking away his followers?" She sighed as she surveyed the area around them, still forested. "Are we ever going to leave these woods?" she asked with irritation.

"Not until just before we reach the castle sadly, though they will thin out some as we start climbing into the mountains, which we will be doing right after lunch."

"If there's enough space at that time, perhaps I could show you my glider, like I mentioned yesterday. It will definitely help solidify the truth that I'm from elsewhere." It really had started to bug her that he simply couldn't wrap his mind around the idea of her being from another world, despite everything she'd told him thus far. Really, he'd seen how different her magic was compared to his, she owned a strange weapon unlike anything he'd come across before, they fought creatures he knew nothing of but she was well versed in, not to mention the countless references she'd made and giant gaps in her knowledge that had no natural explanation if she was supposed to be from his world. She knew that during this apparent time period, other worlds were an impossible thought, but hadn't she proven enough yet? She couldn't help feeling a bit frustrated. The one time she actually wanted to let an inhabitant of another world know that she was an outsider just happened to be the one time she wasn't believed. The irony.

"I will hold you to that, Miss Aqua." Truthfully, he still doubted it would be enough to convince him. Who's to say that she just wasn't from far off part of the world where they have magic more advanced that what he knew? He'd worry about that later though, he thought as he looked up at the light shining through the canopy. "Shall we break for lunch?"

"Oh actual sunlight, what do you know, it _does_ break through the gloom occasionally. Yes, let's stop here before returning to the darkness." She couldn't help the immense amount of sarcasm permeating her first sentence. The truth of the matter was, she wasn't used to traveling so long through the same sort of landscape. Her glider was faster, and she usually traveled over forests rather than through them. Sure, forests had their good points, but darker ones like this with very little change around them became rather draining on her spirits after a while.

Juste raised an eyebrow as she dismounted from the saddle. What was wrong with her? Deciding not to worry about it, he did the same. Since they wouldn't be there long, he didn't worry about setting up wards. Instead he asked her to gather what was needed for a fire, while he fetched the food and cooking implements from the saddlebags.

Not wanting to be still long in the dark forest around her, she cast a quick Aero spell on herself to speed her movement without using her Keyblade as she flitted through the trees to collect fallen branches. The darkness was deeper farther from the path, and she wasn't exactly looking for a fight at the moment, which is why she didn't summon her blade to increase her spell's potency. She knew what a beacon she already was to the Heartless in this world. After finding a sufficient supply of wood, she returned to Juste and the horses.

It was a simple matter to ignite the wood that she had laid in a pile just off the side of the road with a thought, and once it had died down a bit, he quickly got to cooking. "We're having more of the same I'm afraid." he said apologetically. "It's easier to pack a large amount of the same thing to get the most efficiency out of the preservation spells. If we're lucky we might be able to bring down a deer or a rabbit on the way, but that's about it." He settled the pan down on the coals and retrieved the bottle of mead that he had squirreled away. It was dangerous for magic users like himself to get drunk, but there was no harm in having a drink once in a while. He pulled the cork, took a swig, and handed it out to Aqua.

"That's fine, I'm not exactly looking for a 4-star meal," she replied with a smile. The sight of the flickering flames cheered Aqua immensely. She accepted the proffered bottled carefully, and hesitantly sniffed it first. Finding that it smelled sweet, she took a small sip of the drink. It was rather sweet, with fruity taste to it. She was still aware of the alcohol, as she could feel the slight burn in her throat, but the sugar of the drink soothed it. She figured it must be honey. She handed the bottle back to Juste. "And sorry about my attitude lately. I just...really hate dark places. Remember how last night I mentioned being trapped in the Realm of Darkness for ten years? It's not called that for nothing. After so much time there, being stuck in dark places for long periods of time starts to wear on my nerves."

"I can imagine." he replied as he took another drink, corked it, and set it aside as he turned his attention back to the pan. In short order he handed his companion a plate, and then he plated up his own meal. "I don't want to think about being in such a place for so long. Spending a week inside Dracula's castle, where you can only see the moon and never the sun or stars, is horrible enough." He took another drink from the bottle and offered it to Aqua again. "More?" he asked.

Aqua paused, considering. Remembering the sweet taste of the drink, she decided one more sip wouldn't hurt anything, so she did just that before returning it to Juste once more. "Thank you," she commented. Then she formed a cup out of ice with her magic and melted spell-made snow within it, so she had a cup of water to drink with her food. Accustomed to her personal brand of magic, her hands weren't chilled by her ice. One of these days she'd remember to bring a cup along in her bag. Until then, a magic cup would do.

"That's a neat trick." Juste commented as he corked the bottle and put it aside. "I never thought about doing that before. We generally stick with wine and ale, since drinking water can be dangerous, and most magic users around here prefer not to use up their energy for the more mundane things. I'll have to give that a try sometime though."

"It doesn't cost me almost anything energy-wise, and I prefer water to anything else. It's a healthy option, first of all, and second, I'm never sure what drinks from different places are actually made from, so I'm usually a bit wary about them. And alcohol is something I generally avoid anyway. That, however," she gestured toward the bottle, "is sweet and I rather like it. What is it, exactly?"

"It's honey mead," he replied as he began to dig into his own food, "and we seem to have found another difference between your magic and mine. To do what you have done, I would have to constantly expend energy to prevent the ice from melting. Summoning water is easier, because once it is there, it's there, but anything that I would have to constantly maintain would be a continuous drain. Do you not have that problem?"

"Well, the magic I'm using is Blizzard, and is ice-based already. I don't have pure water magic. It's actually a bit more of a challenge to keep the water within from freezing again because I have to use just enough fire magic to melt part but not all of it. I suppose it was challenging when I first started out with this, but I've been doing it for so long now it's become habit, and thus, easy. I suppose it is melting constantly, but it's slow enough that I don't really have to worry," she added as a teardrop slid down the side of the ice. "It's sort of like a frozen treat, like ice cream or molasses candy," she offered, aware that ice cream might not be a thing yet, but that snow-molasses candy was a very old treat, that she'd read about in a book. She tried it once: it wasn't particularly pleasant, but she could see why it would've been liked in olden days when alternatives were scarce. "Since it's solid ice, it melts at a rate dependent on the surrounding temperature. That's why I keep it as far from the fire as I can manage. Were I in a desert, this would be significantly harder."

"Interesting," he said as he watched a drop of water drip from the "cup". "My magic uses a great deal of energy, and I can only expend so much as once before I risk harming myself. When I was a boy, I decided that my cousin, who was teaching me, didn't know what she was talking about, and I went out and started throwing magic around without a care or thought. I was having so much fun that I ignored it when I began to tire, and I didn't stop until I started to feel truly sick. I passed out and woke up two days later, sick and exhausted. It took me a few more days to recover, and once I was better, my parents lectured me, my grandfather lectured me, and then my cousin suspended my magic lessons for two weeks as punishment for nearly killing myself. That was one lesson I learned the first time." He smiled ruefully.

"Mm, I see. I can't say that's something I've ever really experienced. My magic has different limits, I guess. I have a vast supply of it, really, compared to others like me that I've met. I've only known a couple people that have surpassed me in magic, and that's because they're much older than me. I've always been sort of a prodigy where magic is concerned. But anyway, I have a personal limit that I won't go past in combat, that I've had set for so long that I never even try to reach past it unless I'm truly desperate. I have such a great supply of magic naturally that I usually don't need more. I ignored it last night setting the wards because I basically pulled out a large chunk of my store in one go, since I wasn't sure what I would need, and I had already used quite a bit of magic yesterday without restoring it, which is why I became suddenly exhausted. None of my spells ever call for so much magic in one shot. I don't think depleting it entirely would kill me, but I'm sure I wouldn't find the experience pleasant.

"As for that limit I usually use, I can set off whatever spells I like until I've used it up, at which point I can just down one of these," she paused, reaching into a pocket and pulling out an ether, which she then tossed at Juste, "and it fills completely up again. I don't know what ethers are made of, as I buy them from vendors I trust but don't make them myself, but they give me a boost in energy and my magic replenishes immediately. You can find them in most worlds I've been to, but I imagine this one has been so closed off from the others that nothing is really universal between them. My magic does rebuild with time, but during combat I don't always have enough time to wait."

Juste smiled as he held the ether in his hand. "We have these too," he said, "though they sometimes go by different names. My cousins and I call them Mind Ups, and there are larger versions called Mana Prisms. They do come in handy when you're in a dangerous situation with magic the only way out. I also know how to make them, and I have some in the saddlebags as well as a few in my coat pockets. They are basically magic condensed into either a liquid or crystal form, depending on how strong they are. They're tiring to make, but it's the most reliable way to come by them around here. Any place that's saturated with magic, like Dracula's castle for example, can form them naturally, which can then be collected. We'll probably see a few once we get there." He tossed the ether back to her. "If you are finished, we should hurry. We'll be turning off the main road and starting our climb into the mountains soon."

"Huh, wonder how the Moogles make them then? I don't really know much about them, but I didn't think they had magic themselves...maybe they do," she mused quietly as she replaced the ether in her pocket. She visibly perked up at the mention of the mountains. "Fantastic, I can't wait to get out of this forest!"

Moogles? Who or what are Moogles? Juste wondered as he took care of the dishes and doused the fire. He quickly packed things back into the saddlebags. "We'll still be in the forest, but it will thin out some as we climb."

"But I'll be able to see the sun more often, yes? That's what I'm concerned about right now. The gloominess of this place is getting to me," she complained as mildly as she could manage. She shattered her ice cup so that it would melt faster near the remains of the fire. It would melt with or without her help, so she might as well save herself the effort and let it go more naturally. Fire took her a bit more effort than Blizzard, but only barely. She turned to her mare to mount up, but before she could, she felt dark creatures infringing on her senses and stepped back, summoning her keyblade. "Watch out, Juste, Heartless are approaching," she warned.

Juste immediately turned towards the shadows and saw beady yellow eyes staring back at him. "I see." He unhooked the Vampire Killer from his belt. "Any idea how many?"

"Hard to say since they sometimes swarm in the ground. But at least a good handful." The first Heartless spiraled into their clearing, a Soldier intent on ramming into Aqua's head. She slashed it in midair instead, knocking it back, and she followed up with another strike to its own head, and it popped out of existence, leaving smoke and a crystal heart behind, just in time for her to block another attack from the Heartless charge.

The group seemed to ignore him in favor of going after Aqua, and Juste used that to his advantage, swinging the whip at at unprotected backs. The strange armored creatures weren't destroyed as they wer with Aqua's weapon, but it certainly knocked them down for a moment. Before he could move in for the kill, bell shaped Heartless that were colored a brilliant green and floating freely in the air moved in and showered the stunned ones with green pinpricks of light. The ones that he had knocked down immediately resumed their attack, none the worse for wear.  
"What in the world?" He swung out at the flying green Heartless, but they dodged easily out of the way.

"Oh damn it, I hate the healers," Aqua growled, and quickly vaulted away from the melee Heartless to engage the quick-moving Green Requiems darting between trees. "Focus on the Soldiers and Shadows!" she called back to Juste, and closed in on one Requiem to hit it with her blade. These ones were irritatingly immune to magic, so one had to attack them directly.

Juste nodded in response and turned his attention to the armored Heartless – the Soldiers he assumed - and the smaller black shadows that were creeping along the ground. They did not move as quickly as the flying ones, so he was easy able to land hits against them. One of the Soldiers began to spin towards him while balanced on one foot, and he rolled to the side to avoid the point at the end of its metal boot. He threw his cross at it, and it struck it against the back of its helmeted head, which caused it to explode into black wisps that vanished quickly.

Thankfully, despite the various protections, Requiems were quite weak, so a couple hits were enough to dispatch them. Aqua took out the first one with a second well-placed hit, and then flitted through the trees to target the second. There were four of them hanging about in total, so three to go. This one she dispersed in one hit by using the more powerful Stun Edge. After that she had to search for her next foe between the trees.

Juste tossed a bottle of holy water to the ground, and the Shadows in front of him were destroyed instantly, while the remaining Soldiers were forced to back away. A Guided Frost spell sent ice rolling across the ground out in front of him, injuring those that remained and stunning them. A few whip strikes then finished them off, and he turned to see if Aqua needed any help.

She managed to hear the absence of battle noise from Juste's direction and called, "If you're done, help me get the other one! They like to hide." Then she sought her closest one, able to focus on her senses now with most of the Heartless gone, and brought it down with a couple quick hits.

He immediately looked into the trees just in time to see a flash of green and hear the tinkling of tiny bells. Any other time, and he would find the sound pleasing to hear, but not now. The creature was still hovering in Aqua's vicinity, though it wasn't attacking her. Perhaps it had no such magic and was strictly a healer?

Well no matter. It darted out from behind a tree, and Juste pulled out one of his daggers. It paused in mid air for a second, and it was all the time he needed. He threw the dagger point first, and it struck the Heartless right between its eyes. It vanished in a puff of smoke.

Aqua flared her senses to seek any other Heartless remaining in the vicinity, and found none. She sighed and dismissed her blade, then returned to the clearing where Juste waited with the staid horses. "Thanks for the assist. Green Requiems are a major pain. They have no attack ability, but they're fast, immune to magic, and heal other Heartless."

"Rather hard to hit too." Juste commented wryly as he coiled the whip and hung it from his belt. "Please tell me there aren't more like that."

"Healers? Not that I'm aware. But there are others fast and small like that. And immune to certain types of magic, just not all kinds. You probably saw some before. The red ones shaped just like the Requiems are Red Nocturnes, and they use fire, so they're vulnerable to ice, and probably water. Blue ones are Blue Rhapsodies, they're ice based so fire is great. Yellow Operas are thunder users and not weak to any other type but not immune to anything but thunder. They're also the fastest, so good luck with those."

"Thankfully, I haven't encountered any of those, but I think it safe to assume that that will change if things continue." He climbed up onto his horse's back. "It makes me grateful that Dracula rarely has purely magic types at his disposal."

"The melodic Heartless are all very weak to melee combat, so it sometimes easier to just ignore magic altogether with them and hit them a couple times till they die," she stated nonchalantly. Then she climbed onto her mare with some grace. She was steadily improving the longer she kept this whole riding venture up.

They urged the horses back onto the road and continued on their way. "I imagine that they're easier to chase down in a confined space, am I correct?"

"Very much so. And in a forest like this, with so many trees in the way, they're very annoying to chase down. Just about hit more trees than I do enemies."

"It doesn't help that we have such poor lighting here. Makes them difficult to see at times. If those Requiems hadn't been so brightly colored, I would have barely been able to see them at all."

"Very much so. Heartless are so much easier to fight in open spaces where it's easier to distinguish them from normal shadows."

"I'm sure that it helps that creatures of darkness don't like bright sunlight all that much?" Juste said with a small laugh. "Heaven knows that vampires, demons, and their kin certainly don't."

"Well there's certainly that. I don't ever spend so much time under dense forest like this. I haven't been many places that have such dark woods, and I rarely spend more than a few hours in them when they do. I prefer more open spaces, and this is the farthest thing from."

"Then I hope for your sake then that the castle doesn't resurrect itself, because that thing is simply massive, and it's entirely possible to spend days in it and not see the entire thing."

"If it's dark and claustrophobic, it's not really my thing. I have nothing against castles. I grew up in a place that was fairly similar to one. But we had huge windows everywhere, and bright glowing lanterns at night, so I was always surrounded by light. And yet, you could still see the millions of stars in the sky." She smiled at the memory of sitting outside and stargazing with her friends. Ven and Terra, and Master Eraqus, had always been her family. Her smile faded as she thought about her home world now. "It's all gone now though. It was destroyed, and afterward I had to change the fabric of the world to make it into a safe place for Ven after everything with Xehanort happened. I can't reverse it. It'll be the remains of Castle Oblivion forever now. Even if I could change it back, I couldn't bring back Master Eraqus. I couldn't bring back those peace-filled days we had."

Juste looked at her for a long moment without saying anything. Oh yes, definitely a story there, but one that was obviously very painful to speak of. He had to admit that he was very curious, but he kept that to himself. If she wanted to tell him the full story, she would; he wasn't going to make it worse by asking her about it. Instead he opted for the safer ground.

"Actually, the castle is surprisingly well lit. There are candles everywhere, and strangely enough they have little Mind Ups in them. I'm not sure if they form naturally or if someone puts them there for whatever reason, but if you're ever needing more magic to keep casting, smashing a few candles always helps. For some bizarre reason, the little Mind Ups are heart shaped, and what's even more bizarre is the candles reappear when you leave an area and then return. Don't ask me why; no one knows."

"Oh believe me, I know the feeling. Imagine opening a chest to receive an item, only to then watch that chest disappear," she commented, commiserating. She was thankful he didn't ask her about what she'd said before. That was a story that still hurt too much to really tell. She'd talked about Terra before, but the loss of her home, and really, her childhood innocence, was still an open wound, even nearly 15 years later. Then again, when ten of those years were spent in the Realm of Darkness, it's hard to say how much time had really passed for her. Regardless, she still felt the loss keenly. She suspected that this was one wound that would never really go away.

"Or having that chest get up and attack you. Have you ever experienced that one?"

"Yes! You have things like that too? Ugh, it's terrible. We have these Heartless that take the form of a large chest, so if you're not careful and notice that they're placed oddly, you think you're going to get a big prize, but as you try to open it, it lunges at you trying to bite you. We've also got barrel and pot spiders that are similar. You come too close and they pop their legs out the sides and go after you." She was rather happily surprised to hear that they have chests that attack you here too. She'd thought only Heartless did that.

"We have Mimics. They're lesser demons that lure their prey in by acting as a fancy looking chest; one that would contain something really good. Touching them causes them to grow feet and lunge at you. They move surprisingly quick, but since they collect the possessions of their previous victims, killing them can be worth it if you're in need of money or potions."

"Yeesh," she commented. "Ours are annoying, but they're standard as far as Heartless are concerned. Not the strongest, not the fastest, and certainly not the hardest to take down. They do carry more munny than some, but I think that's part of their act than because they actually beat anyone. Then again, I haven't seen Heartless attack many normal people. Maybe they do and I just don't notice it. I've seen Unversed attack people outright, so I suppose Heartless do so on occasion. I've seen them steal someone's heart before, but usually they're more intent on my Keyblade than anything else in the world once they sense its presence."

"I understand that problem all too well. Once we're in the area around the castle, I expect every creature of the night within miles to go: 'I smell Belmont!' and come running."

She laughed at that. "Yes, I know the feeling. At least the Heartless will be attracted to me, so you will only have the usual enemies to deal with," she joked.

"I don't know. They might see me and think 'Oh my, he is dangerous! We'd better take him out quick!'" Juste joked right back. It felt good to have something to laugh about after the past few weeks.

"Hah!" she mock-scoffed. "You don't look so tough as all that. The second they see my Keyblade, that's all they'll focus on. Why, you'll only be background noise," she teased, her tone overfluffed and pompous. She grinned. "Perhaps even your enemies will find me threatening if all the Heartless rush for me. You'll be left with nothing to do."

He straightened in the saddle and puffed out his chest. "I will have you know, Miss Aqua, that I am from pure Belmont stock. Night monsters are _terrified_ of us. Perhaps it will be -you- that will be left with nothing to do?" He relaxed and slumped back down in the saddle. "And if Lydie had seen me do that, she would have slapped me with a dish towel for acting like an idiot." he said with a grin.

Aqua couldn't help giggling. "Oh, but it's all in good fun. Either way, we're both clearly competent and will be able to manage whatever comes our way," she replied.

"I'm sure, but if the Dracula's minions do indeed decide that you are the bigger threat, then I will endeavor to render you aid with all possible haste." he said with a smile.

"And of course I offer the same thing should the Heartless try to overwhelm you," she returned easily. She looked ahead again, wondering if the slight change in light she saw in the distance was a trick or if they really were finally nearing a less dense area of the woods.

"And here we are." Juste said easily as they rode forward. He pointed to a spot about a hundred feet ahead of him. "I know it's hard to see from here with all the undergrowth, but see that small bare patch up and to the right, just about where the forest is starting to thin a bit? That's our turn off, and it's all uphill from there."

"Good, mountain means less dreary forest, I'm all for that," she claimed, once again expressing her displeasure with her surroundings.

"As am I. One one hand the trees shield us from unfriendly eyes, but they also give creatures of the night plenty of places to hide." He shifted in the saddle. "Once we start climbing, we're going to have to slow down a bit. Otherwise we will reach the castle at nightfall, and you do not want to be there after dark. The castle is well lit on the inside, so being inside after dark is the same as being inside during the day. Outside however..." He shook his head slightly.

Aqua nodded. "That sounds fine. You know this place better than I possibly could, so I'll trust your judgment."

Juste nodded as well. "Well then, shall we? The trail is too narrow for us to ride side by side, so I'll take lead. Once the terrain starts to get rough, let your horse decide where to put her hooves; she'll get herself up there just fine." With that, he proceeded onto the narrow trail, and Aqua fell in behind him. As they rode, he glanced up in the vague direction of the castle, and he shivered suddenly.

Fully willing to let the mare handle herself, as Aqua surely couldn't do it with her minimal horse training, she noticed Juste's reaction when he looked off to something in the distance. "Everything okay?" she asked, a bit concerned.

"I'm not sure." he said slowly. "The castle hasn't resurrected, but... call it intuition. Something is definitely wrong up there."

Reaching out with her own perception, she noted a strange disturbance in the general direction Juste had been looking towards. "I think I know what you mean. I definitely feel a lot of darkness over there, but I have no comparison to its normal state, so I'm not sure if what I sense is abnormal."

"If you're sensing anything like that, then it is very abnormal. The castle lies in a dormant state when it's in ruins like it is now, and when it resurrects, the wave of dark power can throw people sensitive to it off of their feet. Since we haven't had that happen, we know it hasn't resurrected, which means we shouldn't be able to sense anything from it, until we get very close."

"Well then, at least we know we're going to the right place. That's most certainly a problem area, it would seem."

"It would seem so. I would like to get there as quickly as possible, but I was very serious when I said that we don't want to be outside around the castle after dark, so we have to time it carefully." He frowned. The feel of anything from the castle bothered him more than he would admit. "Let's go."

She didn't see a need to respond to the more or less rhetorical statement, so she simply followed. Her mare snuffed softly at the changing environment and began to pay more attention to the path, picking her way around stones and bumps on the road.

Juste mentally calculated their route and the time it would take. If they camped early, had a bit of a lie in, and a leisurely breakfast, they would reach the castle around noon, provided that nothing went wrong. (And he sincerely hoped nothing would, but that went without saying.) He looked away from the castle's direction as the trail became steeper and told himself that they were already halfway there. Hopefully they could arrive before anything happened.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Juste laid on his bedroll and stared up at the slowly brightening sky. Part of him was antsy to get a move on, but he tried to ignore it. They were only a few hours from the castle, and he could faintly sense it on the edges of his awareness. As always there was the Chaos power that clung to Dracula and his abode, but it was weak and barely noticeable. He wasn't sure if Aqua could sense it at all; her senses seemed to be geared towards more light and dark elements. Truth be told though, if he hadn't been born a Belmont and hadn't actually been in Dracula's presence inside his castle, he probably wouldn't be able to sense the Chaos either.

Speaking of Aqua, he glanced over to his left and saw her sitting by the embers of the dying fire, deep in thought. Maybe now was a good time to ask about this glider that she had spoken about.

He sat up. "Miss Aqua?" She looked at him. "That glider you mentioned. Could you show it to me?"

Aqua perked up. She'd been lost in a daze, thinking of nothing and everything at once. She was grateful for the reminder, and hopped up. "Sure! It looks like we've got enough space over here," she said, gesturing to an open area nearby that wasn't occupied by horses or camping gear. She summoned her blade. "Now usually, I would be wearing my armor as well, because I can use the glider to move between worlds and the space between can be dangerous to people without proper protection. But since I'm not crossing borders today, I'll leave it compressed." She willed her Keyblade to change, and in a flash of light, her weapon was no longer there. In its place floated a large dark grey and blue metal contraption that she knew Juste had probably never seen anything like before.

Juste imagined his mother scolding him for catching flies as he stared at the... _thing_ her weapon had become. He slowly stood up and walked over to it. He could feel the magic coming off of it, weaker than what her weapon put off but it was enough to tell him clearly that her keyblade had indeed changed form.

He couldn't even begin to describe the shape it had taken, but it was in various shades of gray and blue, and most importantly...

It was hovering.

Hovering above the ground, floating freely, and Juste's senses let him no that it was due to no extra magic on her part.

"And you ride this?" he asked after a few minutes of examining it in detail. "How?"

She smiled at his obvious confusion, and she jumped on to her glider to demonstrate. "Like this," she replied. She took off for a short fly around the glade, careful to avoid the fire and the horses. She could move much faster in more open areas, but due to the smaller space, she rode at a much decreased speed. She came to a stop after a few moments of that back where she started, and looked to Juste to see his reaction.

He watched in awed silence as he watched her fly. He'd heard rumors from the Belnades Clan that, in other parts of the world, mages and wizards had learned how to use magic to enable them to fly, but he had always scoffed at such stories. If God had meant humans to fly, He would have given them wings. But this... maybe the stories were true?

Or maybe she really was from another world, a part of him whispered.

She glided down and stopped in front of him, grinning happily, and he laughed quietly as he walked up to her -

His senses screamed in warning, and he had just enough time to catch the smile vanish from her face as he felt that dreaded feeling, that -wave- of dark power that could only mean one thing, came roaring up from behind him.

"Get down!" he shouted as he threw himself to the ground. It wouldn't affect the horses all that much, but them...

She felt the rush of power ripple past as Juste dropped to the ground, and unable to move quickly enough, the blast slammed her off her glider into a tree. Her glider vanished as she had made no effort to make it remain. Her head ached from colliding with the tree, and she was completely winded from the impact, struggling to regain the ability to breathe.

Juste raised his head as the wave rolled past. Behind him he could hear the horses whinnying and stamping their hooves in fright, but he ignored that as he saw Aqua slam into tree.

"Miss Aqua!" He scrambled to his feet and ran over to her as he fished a healing potion from one of his pockets. He knelt down in front of her and was relieved when both of her eyes focused on him right away. "Drink this." he said as he held the opened bottle to her mouth.

'Sure,' she wanted to say, 'just as soon as I can breathe again.' She pushed the bottle away from her as breathing was more important than trying to swallow. She tried not to glare at him while she slowly managed to force air back into her lungs. She coughed uncontrollably during this process, eventually managing to calm her diaphragm and lungs sufficiently to where breathing was no longer an issue. "I don't need that," she said roughly, her throat a bit sore. "I hit my head and had the wind knocked from me, but I'm all right."

"Are you sure?" he asked as he put the cork back on the lid. When she nodded, he stuffed it in a pocket. "Are you sure that you're alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine! You're as bad as Ven and Terra, goodness. I'm not made of glass," she complained. "Just tell me what that was."

Despite everything, he had to laugh lightly at her comment. Yes, she was fine. "That was the castle resurrecting." he said, serious again. "We need to hurry."

"I thought it only did that when Dracula resurrects?" she questioned worriedly. She automatically packed up her things and readied her horse, however, drawn by his anxiety.

He smothered the fire with a quick burst of water magic, saddled his horse, and gathered his things. "The castle comes first." he explained as he worked. "The way the Crimson Stone works is that it gathers and collects Chaos power. When it has enough, it feeds it to the castle, resurrecting it. Once the castle is up, it also starts gathering power, and it acts as a conduit, sending it through the Crimson Stone to Dracula. When there is enough, he resurrects in a physical form. He usually appears a few days after the castle does, though he doesn't always resurrect at full power. If his followers offer up a sacrifice of sufficient power, he will resurrect at full power, but if he doesn't, he will simply gain it over the course of a few more days." He climbed up into the saddle and gave Aqua a serious look. "Dracula at full power is extremely dangerous. Only Trevor, Christopher, and Grandfather have faced him in that state, so we have to hurry and hope no one offered up a sacrifice."

"Oh no," she murmured, eyes wide. Now the need to hurry made perfect sense. "I don't know what chaos power is, but I certainly get the idea." After ensuring that everything had been collected and the wards wiped out, she jumped on her saddle and followed Juste's lead further up the mountain.

Juste said nothing to his companion as he urged his horse up the mountain trail as quickly as the terrain would allow. It was too soon for Dracula to resurrect, far too soon. With it being only five years since his last attempt, there was no way possible for the Crimson Stone to gather so much power so quickly, so either his followers had helped things along or...

Whatever it was that they could sense up there was responsible. And that meant that he was dealing with something completely unknown to the Belmonts and Belnades. He hoped at least, that Aqua had some ideas, because he had nothing to go on.

The next few hours were in silence, and it was with equal parts relief and dread that they crested a rise and found themselves on a broad, tree-covered plateau overlooking a large lake. Across the lake from them was what he had feared.

"There!" he pointed. "There it is! There is Castlevania!"

The dark spires and walls that made up what she could see of the castle from this distance inspired a measure of unease in Aqua. She frowned at it. "And you're telling me that...just sprang up suddenly from ruins? As in it just rebuilt itself in one fell swoop somehow?"

He nodded. "It did. That should give you a rough idea of what we're dealing with. It takes enormous power to resurrect the castle and keep it standing. It's either Dracula, or something or someone every bit as dangerous."

She wished she could be sure of what they were likely to face. Obviously this was something Juste wasn't familiar with, which should make it fall into her territory, but for the life of her she couldn't think of a threat outside of the now-completely-gone Xehanort that could cause this. Clearly there was a ton of power being put into this monstrosity.

Juste urged his horse forward. "Let's go. Keep your eyes open and your senses on alert. As we speak, creatures that serve Dracula are spawning within and around the castle, and they will attack us on sight. We'll go about halfway around the edge of the lake towards the castle, and then we'll let the horses loose. They won't wander far, but leaving them loose allows them to defend themselves easier. We'll walk the rest of the way then."

"Got it," she replied, and followed him as he suggested. As they drew nearer, Aqua felt a surge of darkness coming close. "Juste, Heartless are near!" she called out quickly, and she jumped from the saddle, summoning her blade in tandem. They had gotten close enough to the point Juste planned for anyway.

"And they're not alone!" he said as he jumped to the ground and uncoiled the Vampire Killer. He saw the Heartless teleporting in, but he ignored them as they went straight for Aqua. Instead he focused on the ground in front of him is it rippled and bulged, and after a moment, rotting corpses erupted from the dirt and shambled straight towards him.

"Zombies," he said in disgust. The lowest of Dracula's minions, they were pretty mindless and would target the nearest living being that they could see. They would target Aqua then, but he had to keep them away from her; she had her own problems to deal with. He shouted a warning to her about them, and then got to work.

Aqua ran towards the Heartless mob to head them off, in a similar manner to Juste. At his warning shout, she popped a quick bubble shield up and glanced through the shimmery glass to take a look at the enemies heading towards her companion. She grimaced at the sight of them; they reminded her of the sorts that hung around Halloween Town, and she was quite willing to let Juste deal with those. She turned her attention back to the Heartless as one of them launched itself uncaringly into her shield and was bounced back. She knew that the Heartless would target her primarily, due to her heart and Keyblade, so she had little worry of them wandering off toward Juste instead. That was perfectly fine with her; less to think about.

She immediately launched herself into the fight, casting a few powerful area effects of the thunder and blizzard variety. The combination resulted in an interesting winter storm of sorts, which she took pleasant note of while she fended off a couple attacks from Heartless that weren't killed outright by the storm. She quickly counterattacked, and leaped back when one of the Large Bodies attempted to squish her by jumping on her. This put her directly in the path of a Cycloning Soldier, which she barely managed to block. She was forced to remain blocking as a couple more Heartless charged at her until she managed to throw one back and dodge away from the onslaught.

Juste backdashed to gain some breathing room and swung the Vampire Killer out in a wide arch. The horizontal swing caught five zombies at once, and they exploded into bloodied bits of rotten flesh and vanished. Unfortunately, more simply took their place, and he frowned. Why were they so aggressive? Zombies normally spawned and ran in a straight line toward the nearest target. If said target jumped over them or dodged around them, they kept going without turning around. Yet these zombies were tracking him for some reason. He pulled a Holy Water out of his pocket and flung it. Since they weren't in the castle yet, it did not burst into flame upon contact with the ground, but it did catch a cluster of zombies when the vial shattered, splattering its contents everywhere.

Behind him he heard Aqua spellcasting and decided that that was good idea. A quick burst of power later, he summoned Hydro Storm, and the zombies in front of him went down in a holy fire. He dropped to the ground as the spell came to an end, but the clanking of bones told him that the battle wasn't over yet.

Bones erupted from the ground, and they flew together to form the second weakest of Dracula's minions: the skeletons. Juste darted forward and swung the Vampire Killer at the forming skeleton closest to him, and it was blown apart and scattered around. He quickly switched his attention to the next one, but to his dismay, he could see more already forming. He stood still for a moment to let them get close, and then he pulled his cross out of his shirt and held it high. It began to shine with a bright white light, and he called on his own power while asking for His assistance. He rose off the ground and hovered there.

"Grand Cross!"

He was enveloped in a column of pure, brilliant light as multiple large crosses began to spiral up around him. The skeletons burst into flames, and their bones were scattered around as the holy attack destroyed them instantly. The spell then reached its end, and Juste dropped lightly to the ground, with a whispered thanks for His help. No new monsters appeared then, and he turned to Aqua to see how she was faring.

Finally losing her temper a bit at the seemingly unceasing horde of Heartless around her, she pulled together a large chunk of her combat magic and cast Meteor Crash, slamming the earth below her with her Keyblade as a rain of meteors ravaged the ground around her. After that, any Heartless that miraculously survived the spell were quickly brought to heel with her blade. At last, it seemed there were no more enemies in the vicinity, but she kept her weapon at the ready regardless.

"I am so glad I had Terra teach me that one," she muttered as she downed an ether to replenish her magic.

Juste whistled in appreciation, which caused her to turn and face him. "Impressive." he said as he slowly clapped his hands.

"Heh, thanks, but really I just lost my temper and cast a greater spell than was perhaps necessary," she responded, already criticizing herself. "From what I glimpsed of your own fight, it was rather spectacular as well," she added.

He sketched a bow. "Thank you, thank you." He stood up and smiled. "Don't worry about losing your temper; I used more power than I needed with Grand Cross anyway, simply because I was tired of dealing with them. I really could have gotten by with something less powerful." He took a quick glance around. "I don't sense anything else nearby, so shall we continue on to the castle?"

"Yes. The sooner we get to the source and see what we're dealing with, the sooner we can get rid of it," she replied, ever practical.

"Then let us take what we need from the saddle bags, remove the saddles from the horses, and let them loose. Then we will go in." Juste quickly walked back over to where his horse was standing while anxiously pawing the ground, and pulled the stored food out of the saddle bags. He slipped them into one of his pockets, and the spells on the pocket itself shrank them down to size so they would easily fit. Aqua also emptied out her bags, after a quick question on what to take, and once that was done, they removed the saddles and bridles, dropped them to the ground at the base of a nearby tree, and let the horses go. They cantered off, and Juste turned to face the castle.

The walk around the inlet to the bluff on which the castle sat was quietly. There was no conversation, and no more monsters attacked them. There were also no sounds of nature: no calling birds, no chirping insects, not even the rustle of a small animal darting through the undergrowth.

"Do you hear that?" he asked. "The silence?"

"It's unreal. I've only rarely heard such absolute silence, and even then it was filled with my own voice in the darkness. Even the Realm of Darkness had the sound of the sea to break the quiet," she commented uneasily.

"Even nature abhors the abomination ahead of us. I guarantee you that the reason we're not hearing any wildlife is because there isn't any. They move far away from here when the castle rises. It's also why the horses won't come any closer." He shook his head as they walked closer to the castle. Its massive size loomed over them as they approached, and even though it was about noon, the sunlight dimmed as they neared it. "No matter what time of day, it is always midnight at the castle, and the moon is always full. Around the clock tower and Dracula's throne room, it is the same color as blood. Say your goodbyes to the sun, Miss Aqua; you won't be seeing it for a while."

"How can that even be possible? Constant midnight, and a full moon, no matter how long you are here or what time it should be? Is this some kind of massive temporal rift or something?" She tried to make the logic work in her head. Was it like Twilight Town, where it's always sunset, on a smaller scale? But how could it maintain itself? It had to take a vast amount of power.

"We don't know how it is possible, but it's always the same. We have no other explanation other than it is Dracula's power, even though he has likely not resurrected yet. Young vampires cannot take sunlight at all; exposure to it will set them on fire. Older and more powerful vampires like Dracula can go out in the sun, but they are weaker during the daylight hours and most powerful at midnight.

"The full moon is likely due to him having plenty of werewolves and wargs among his minions, and they are also most powerful under a full moon. If you by chance see a wolf standing up on its hind legs like a human, be careful. Those are the werewolves, and they can transmit their curse to you via bite. Wargs are massive wolves that come straight from hell, and some are capable of breathing fire, so try to keep your distance from them."

"Wonderful. And here I thought Bad Dogs were annoying," she commented sarcastically. Honestly, this world just kept getting better the longer she was exposed to it.

The sun vanished completely as they neared the castle, and Juste stopped for a minute to let his eyes adjust to the sudden change in light. The moon then appeared from the behind the throne room, which allowed him to clearly the see the hands on the large clock tower.

"Why does there always have to be a clock tower." he muttered in annoyance, and then he shook his head and kept walking.

Soon even the moonlight was lost as the castle blocked their view of it, and they came across a wide moat in front of the castle entrance. The drawbridge was down, but he knew it wouldn't stay that way.

"Hurry, before the bridge goes up!" he shouted as he broke into a sprint.

Aqua jumped, startled by his sudden change in pace. She quickly dashed after him, not knowing exactly why.

There was a creak, followed by the groan of wood, and the heavy chains that supported the drawbridge began to move, drawn back by massive crank wheels that he could just see on the other side of the bridge. The bridge itself began to rise, and Juste easily leapt across the small gap and ran to stand just inside the doorway. Only then did he turn to see if Aqua made it.

A few lengths behind Juste, Aqua was later arriving at the bridge than her companion, and could no longer jump it as easily as he did. However, she was nothing if not acrobatic, and she leaped for the rising drawbridge, catching the edge with her hands, then flipping up and over it, sliding down the slope of the wood as it continued rising behind her. She held that momentum until she had made it through the great stone door. She caught her breath before saying, "You might've warned me about that before we got that close."

"Are you all right? I should have warned you about that, but I honestly forgot about it. We're not sure if it's to keep people out... or to keep them in."

"Not entirely useful against skilled rock climbers or those that can fly, but I suppose it works against most people," she commented sardonically. "But if it were primarily to keep people in, why would it start raising as soon as someone comes within sight of it, and not before or after?" Her scholarly musing prevented her from realizing that that had been more or less a rhetorical statement. "I'm fine, though. We ought to keep moving."

Juste gave her a sardonic smile. "If you were out here, alone, and you had just been attacked like we were earlier, and you saw that drawbridge going up, what would you do? Take your chances out here? Or run for the nearest shelter? Believe me, we've encountered other people in this castle before, or rather, what was left of them. The monsters in here have to eat, after all."

He turned away from her and looked through the massive archway in the entrance hall as the drawbridge closed behind them. "No matter. We need to move on." With that, he led the way in the entrance hall.

It was very much like it had been last time, and how Trevor, Christopher, and his own grandfather had described it. Long, with a high ceiling, and a red carpet running straight down the center, the walls were lined with ornate columns and tall windows with ragged red curtains. Candelabras dotted the walls, bathing the area in a warm glow, and just ahead of them, just as he had expected, were the first Wargs.

Large and red eyed, the giant wolves stared down at them, growling threateningly, and Juste gave Aqua a sideways glance. "Ever seen anything like that?"

Aqua took note of the opulent style of the entrance hall, not entirely sure why it was so richly decorated when the castle's owners were unlikely to pay any attention to the rich detail and any possible visitors weren't likely to live long enough to appreciate it either. But she saw as she glanced to the windows that not everything was in as nice a condition as other parts, if the curtains were anything to go by. She caught sight of dark greenery outside, and couldn't help feeling that it didn't really belong. In a place where it's always midnight, home to vampires and other dark creatures, the plants should be barren to reflect its true nature.

Her attention was immediately claimed upon hearing a deep growl down the hall. Her gaze locked onto the great beasts before them. "Can't say that I have..." she answered after hearing Juste's query. Her keyblade rematerialized in her hand, having dropped it during their race to the drawbridge a few moments prior. Confidently, she continued, "But they're nothing we can't handle."

"How right you are." He forward dashed, and with one swing of the Vampire Killer, they wolf went up in a blaze of fire as it howled. It quickly vanished into thin air - few of Castlevania's denizens left a body behind – and Juste turned back to Aqua. "This, however, is just the welcoming committee. Things will get more dangerous as we progress."

"Of course," she agreed, and they proceeded down the hall.

They dispatched a few more Wargs as they went, and then Juste spotted a few bats hanging from the ceiling. "Watch out for bats." he warned. "They don't hit hard, but they are Dracula's eyes and ears, and they will fly down and swoop by when you get close enough. They are really good at knocking you off ledges." He then took care of them with a quick fireball, and then they walked up a few steps and through the doorway to the next room.

The smell of water and the sounds of splashing told him immediately what was below them. They were standing on a walkway, with a staircase leading down to their right, over a large pool of water. That pool of water was full of Mermen.

"Those are Mermen." he said. "They are also fairly weak, though they're a bit stronger than the Wargs. They do hit harder, and they shoot fireballs. There's probably a doorway down there..." He leaned to the side and crouched down until he could see it recessed in the far wall just above the water. "Yes, there it is. It likely leads into the lower levels of the castle, but it's probably blocked off by a switch we can't reach at this time."

"That's quite a few 'probablies'," she commented. "You've been here before, shouldn't you know more definitively?"

Juste shook his head as he stood up. "Sadly no. This castle is born of Chaos, and for that reason, its layout is never the same twice. Some things can be expected. The entrance hall, for example, is always in the same place with nearly the same appearance. Below the castle will likely be a large series of caverns, a waterway, and possibly a battle arena of some kind. Above us will be a chapel of considerable size, a clock tower – which you will _loathe_ once we get there, believe me – and Dracula's throne room. The clock tower and the throne room will also be close to each other. Even those areas though, will be in different locations every time. There will also be new areas that will never be seen again after this."

"That's fantastic," she said, rolling her eyes. "A castle that changes every time it rises from the ashes. I'm really starting to think that nothing in this world is at all easy."

They walked across the walkway, up a few steps, and through the door into the next room. There was an opening in the high ceiling just inside the door, but it was too high to jump. "That's probably a shortcut to the upper levels," he commented, "but we can't reach it now. I'm sure that somewhere in the castle we'll either find another way in to that area, or we'll find an artifact of some kind that allows us to make the jump. This castle is always full of little objects like that."

"Mm yeah, I see what you mean," she agreed, viewing the ceiling herself. "Reminds me of the time a while back now when I visited the dungeons of an evil queen's castle. For some reason she had these pots that if you blasted fire at them, they would bubble and you could use that to give you a huge boost to another level of the place. There were certain places there that you had to be very good at aiming to reach with jumps."

"Sometime, Miss Aqua, when this is all said and done, we are going to have to sit down in comfortable chairs in front of a crackling fireplace and swap stories."

She laughed. "Yes, I quite agree. I'm sure you have nearly as many stories as I do."

"Oh you have no idea." He smiled faintly before he turned serious again. "Once we step down to the floor in here, keep an eye out for zombies. They erupt from the floor without warning in the second half of the entrance, and they will come straight at you. Normally if you just jump over them, they won't turn and pursue you, but the ones we encountered outside the castle did, which has me rather puzzled. I don't understand why their behavior would suddenly change, since they really don't have any intelligence to speak off."

"Is there any reason, or preference, whether to kill them or not?"

"It's faster not to, and their drops aren't any good. That's another thing: every monster in this castle will drop _something_ and sometimes those drops are very good. They don't always drop whatever they have, but if you keep at it, you'll get it sooner or later. As for the zombies though, don't waste your time. They don't have anything useful."

"Do they drop munny? Munny's useful," she questioned. "Heartless often drop things too, but mostly munny. I have no idea where they pick the stuff up, but they always have something. I guess they're both similar in that." It seemed regardless the enemy, they always had some things in common.

"Sometimes they do, in small amounts. However, a more reliable source of money here is..." He lashed out with his whip and destroyed a candelabra that was nearby. A single coin fell to the ground, and he went down and picked it up. "... candles. If your magic is full, the candles drop coins. Don't ask why; it's yet another thing about this place that we don't understand." He went back up the steps to the landing and handed her the coin. "There you are, my lady."

Aqua laughed again, accepting the coin and slipping it into a pocket. "That's just like it is in other worlds. Random breakable objects have munny inside them for no foreseeable reason. But well, every bit helps. Synthesizing gear gets expensive."

"So do the shops here, if we find one."

"By here, you surely don't mean in the castle."

"If I hadn't seen them with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed either. The last time I was here, I kept running into a merchant in various places. I'm not sure if it was the same man every time or if he had several brothers that looked just like him. If it was the same man, then I'd like to know how I would see him in the waterway, and then a day later see him in the keep, complete with his entire inventory.

"Grandfather never saw a merchant in the castle, neither did Trevor or Christopher, so I have no idea if we'll find one again or not."

"That's so strange. I tend to find Moogles on most worlds I visit, but since they're also interplanetary travellers, as well as good merchants and synthesizers, it doesn't usually surprise me. Although sometimes their locations are odd. Sora told me he found one in Christmas Town set way up on a hill near the juncture that led to Halloween Town. It just sort of sat there in the snow. I can't imagine it got much business way up there, so I have no idea why it was there, but so it goes." She chattered about the Moogles, vaguely aware that Juste probably had zero ideas what she was talking about.

There she went talking about the Moogles again. Juste chose not to comment on it. Instead he looked across the room. His feet on the floor below had started the zombies' spawning, and there were several of them trundling across the floor at them. "Shall we?"

"Over or through?" she asked with one eyebrow raised, but didn't wait for an answer as she executed a sliding dash at the end of which she spun in a tight circle, her blade surrounded by ice, slicing into several of the creatures, shattering a few due to the extreme cold of her weapon. The majority of those she hit died instantly. Only those that caught just a bit of her blade survived it, and were slowed even further than their normal gait due to the freezing properties of the Blizzard spell on her Keyblade.

"Well, I was going to say over," Juste replied as he strolled casually down the steps to the floor, "but your method works too." He came up to stand beside Aqua and raised his hand, which caused a wall of water to erupt from the floor and roll across it, flattening the zombies as it went. The two of them walked across the room to the opposite door, with only a few zombies appearing as they went, and those were easily taken out by their weapons.

"So what all do we actually expect to see in this place? I know obviously some things will come as a surprise, but..." Aqua trailed off as they enter the next room.

Juste didn't blink as he looked up at the giant skeleton in front of him. It was tall, so much so that it couldn't stand up straight and still fit in the already high ceilinged room. It was at least twice his own height, perhaps a bit over it. In its right hand it carried a long bone that it obviously intended to use as a weapon of some kind, and the empty sockets where eyes should have been were glowing with bright points of orange flame.

"So soon?" he said out loud. "I wasn't expecting to fight one of the elite this early on."

"We've been wandering the halls for quite a while now, what do you mean 'soon'?" Aqua remarked with mild incredulity. Still, she stared at the humongous skeleton and immediately started analyzing it for weaknesses. "I don't fight bones often. What would be most effective for this?"

Juste kept his eyes on the large skeleton as it lumbered towards him. "This thing will be slow, but it has a long reach and its bone club there will hit very hard, so watch for that. Use anything of a holy nature, most other magic won't have much of an effect. Physical attacks work best though." The monster crept even closer and raised its club to try and smash them with it. "You take one side, and I'll take the other."

Aqua nodded and dashed straight at it as her Keyblade materialized, dropping down and sliding past its club as it swung at her. She delivered a vicious strike to its right knee joint, hoping that if she forced enough pressure onto the joints, they would break loose and limit the giant skeleton's mobility. Per Juste's suggestion, she would stick to physical attacks in this fight, as she had no holy magic of this world and the only light spell she knew was mostly a knockback spell Queen Minnie taught her recently, and she was rather sure that wouldn't affect an enemy this large.

Juste dodged to the left to avoid the bone club as it smashed into the floor, shaking the room and sending dust sifting down from the ceiling. He saw her land a strike against the creature's right knee and decided to do the same, only against the left knee. The skeleton staggered and turned to face him, and he backdashed to escape its large club as it swung at him. He then dashed forward and cast Grand Cross, knowing that the holy attack would deal a fair amount of damage.

Aqua rolled aside as the skeleton turned toward Juste blindly, its club narrowly missing her by chance as she wasn't its current target. She sprinted back into range to land another solid blow against the knee joint before she leapt back out of the way of Juste's Grand Cross, unsure whether his magic would hurt her or not. Her own magic never damaged her as it was a part of her, but she didn't think Juste's magic would be so discerning, even if it was 'holy magic'. She could see it caused a fair bit of damage to the creature, but it was still up and moving-and very focused on Juste. She ran back in again to take yet another heavy swipe at its knee and this time, she heard a satisfying crack as the bone failed to withstand so much concentrated damage. She cartwheeled backwards out of range in case it were to stumble into her.

Juste dropped to the ground as his spell ended, and he had to skip backward quickly to avoid the skeleton's next attack. He heard the cracking of bone and looked over just in time to see Aqua cartwheeling out of the way as the monster's right knee buckled underneath it. The skeleton then turned its attention towards her, but before it could raise its club, he took advantage of its inattention to rush forward and attack its other knee with the Vampire Killer. The whip cracked loudly against the bone, followed a second later by the bone itself cracking as it broke under the blow, sending the monster to its knees.

It stumbled as its weight caused it to be unbalanced from its fall, and the sight of the skeleton trying to move around on disconnected knees was rather comical. Aqua felt her lips twitch into a grin as she rushed at it, sliding past it as she approached. She wanted its unprotected back, because now that it was about five feet or more shorter, she could reach its neck with a jump. The monster continued stumbling about as it tried to attack the two simultaneously, and Aqua took advantage of its distraction, lunging upward and using the skeleton's vertebrae to keep a steady hold on its back. Adjusting her position to give herself a good angle, she drove her Keyblade into the hollow between the skull and the atlas bone of the vertebral column, putting as much force as she could behind the stab as she twisted her blade slightly to make it act as a wedge between the bones.

The skeleton stumbled under Aqua's blow, and it teetered for a moment, but managed to keep itself upright. With it distracted by an attacker on its back, Juste was able to rain down blows on its front side, though he had to dodge its flailing arms as it tried to knock Aqua off. He didn't know what she was trying to do, but she obviously had a plan of some kind, so the least he could do was keep it focused on him. Summoning his magic to him, he began hurling fireballs into its face, which forced it to keep its attention on him. They wouldn't do much damage, but he wasn't concerned with that.

The force of her blade alone wasn't quite enough to pop the bones apart, so she was grateful for Juste's attempts to distract the skeleton as she thought furiously to come up with something further she could do. Fire wouldn't help her, but...ice! That would be perfect! Keeping her blade exactly where it was between the bones, she focused Blizzard magic precisely on the tip of her Keyblade, and forced it to expand rapidly. The magic holding the bones together was not strong enough to combat the sudden block of ice forming in the space between the skull and atlas, and with a pop the skull shot into the air, separated from the body. Aqua pushed off the monster's back as it fell forward.

Juste jumped to the side as the skull came tumbling towards him, and then he had to dash back a good distance as the body collapsed to the floor. He saw Aqua land neatly on her feet behind it, and he had to admire her creativity in disabling their opponent. Normally, they just beat on the elite until the holy power of the whip overcame the dark power keeping them animated.

The skeleton was still twitching, so he called to his companion. "Do you have a shield spell of some kind?"

"Yes," she responded loudly enough for him to hear her. Her usual magic bubble block was enough to repel most physical and magical attacks. She deduced he was going to cast a major spell to finish off the heap of bones in front of her. She lifted her Keyblade at the ready and waited for him to cast. It was best if she paused until he began the spell so it would deflect as much of the magic as possible, in case it were to last longer than a simple block would be able to manage.

He cast his own shield spell, and seeing her at the ready, summoned his power and cast Holy Lightning again. This time, he focused it far more than he normally did, so instead of coming down in multiple arcs, it came down as one beam that forked into two. The air crackled with power, there was a sizzling heat, and with a loud _boom!_ the lightning struck the skull and body, which caused both to shatter into thousands of tiny pieces. Bone shards bounced off his shield, and he stumbled back and lost control of it as his magic levels dropped sharply. He grinned as he saw the results of his work. The skeleton was lying in fragments around the room that slowly crumbled into dust, and there were two large scorch marks on the carpet.

He looked over at Aqua to see her still ducked behind her own shield, one that went completely around her as well as over her. "I think that went well, wouldn't you agree?"

She smiled as she touched down lightly on the ground as her shield vanished. "I'd certainly say so," she confirmed. "It's a good thing this castle isn't owned by anyone who cares for its appearance," she joked, looking at the burns on the floor with amusement, "because otherwise the owners would be very put out."

Juste laughed a lot louder than he normally would; magic drain giddiness, he supposed. "Very true. 'Tis a good thing then that Dracula cares not for his castle's appearance. He might, IF we let him stay on this earth long enough to do so, but that's never a problem." He shook his head. "Anyway, I depleted a lot of magic to destroy that thing, so we should find a sanctuary soon. If the castle stays true to form, one will be very close by."

She raised an eyebrow at his laughter; her joke wasn't -that- funny. "What's a sanctuary?" she questioned.

He managed to bring his laughter under control and made a mental note to try and avoid depleting his magic in such a way if at all possible. "They are rooms within the castle that no monster dare enter. It's said that not even Dracula can go into them. We think they are holdovers from the castle that this one was created from, but they are sacred places, where you will recover your health and energy at a greatly accelerated rate. We can walk in, relax for a few hours, have a quick meal, and be ready to go like we just had a full night of sleep." 

"Wow, that's nice. In other worlds we have these points that connect directly to the ways between worlds, and their energy recovers both health and magic almost immediately, but they're few and far between usually. I'm not sure how they work, but they do. And hey, in the event that we don't find one of those rooms right away, you can try one of my ethers. I have far more than I need, and I'm curious to know if they will work the same for you as they do for me, since I bet yours and mine are different since our magic is different," she mused.

Juste pushed himself away from the wall. "I'm sure I'll get to try one at some point. Some of Dracula's Elite require a great deal of magic to bring down, so I would be more than happy to try one in the future. For now though, let's see if we can find a sanctuary." He wobbled a bit as he began to walk towards her, but he quickly had his legs steady again, and he walked past her and through the doorway opposite the one that they had come through.

Aqua watched him wobble with concern, and she kept a close eye on him as they continued, in case she should need to catch him if he stumbled.

They stepped out onto a small landing on a wide spiraling stone staircase. A breeze blew gently up the shaft, carrying with it the smell of water, moss, and rot, which told him very clearly that they were a path to the waterway below. Above them, on the opposite wall was a closed door that was heavily barred, and the heavy beams that locked it glowed with their own power. Across from them however, was what he had hoped to see: a set of ornate double doors, with decorative inlays that glowed with soft blue light.

He pointed to the door above him and waited until Aqua had looked up at it. "That door is locked for now. I'm sure that somewhere in here is a switch that will open it." He pointed down towards the bottom on the staircase. "I'm certain that leads to the waterway, which is the only option left open to us as far as where we can go next." He dropped his hand and stepped off the landing onto the staircase, and then onto the opposite landing in front of the double doors. "This is what we're looking for. All sanctuaries have a door such as this. It changes slightly from castle to castle, but it is always obvious what is behind them." He pushed them open and stepped inside.

She paid his explanations attention and observed the areas they entered with care. As he pointed out the sanctuary doors, she nodded, saying, "I'll keep that in mind." It was hard to say what might happen that would require her to remember that, but she knew it was important regardless.

Inside, they found a room that shouldn't have been possible in such a place as Dracula's castle. It was fairly small, only about the size of Juste's living room, and square in shape. Intricate stained glass windows lined the walls, allowing soft light to filter in. A babbling stream bubbled up from a fountain against the far wall and flowed around a central platform before exiting the room somewhere out of sight. Countless bushes, flowers, and tall grasses grew in abundance: in boxes around the center platform, in crevices in the walls, and on fine metal trellises that were scattered about. More grass, shorter and softer than the rest, filled the path and platform, and it rustled and swayed as they stepped inside. At the end of the platform, just in front of the fountain, stood a statue of the angel Raphael, with its hands outstretched, and it glowed with a warm, yellow light.

"Come here." Juste said softly.

When she followed Juste into the sanctuary, she could hardly believe her eyes. "How can such a place be in here? It's so different from everywhere else we've been!" She felt the aura of the room already relaxing her. "It's beautiful..."

Juste smiled. "It is the magic of these rooms. They appear in whatever form the user would find relaxing. In my previous run through this castle, I was just happy to find a safe, empty place to sit down, so that's the form they took: an empty room. Not all of them have a statue either." He beckoned her closer. "Come, touch the statue." He laid his hand on Raphael's and felt a healing energy flowing into him, banishing his magical drain and the tiredness it caused.

She obediently touched the stone angel and felt a much muted version of the healing Juste received, but she could feel the power within the statue. It soothed her muscles and refilled the small amount of magic she'd used, but as she hadn't suffered any damage nor used very much magic, the properties of the angel were quite reduced for her. Afterward, she sank down onto the soft, cool grass and let the atmosphere of the garden calm her mind as the sound of the water soothed her. She smiled slightly from the feel of it.

The glow from the statue faded, its power consumed for the time being. Later it would replenish itself once they were out of the room so it could be used again later if they needed it. Juste took his hand away from it, whispered a quick prayer of thanks, and then he moved to sit on the grass beside Aqua.

"It is amazing, isn't it?" he asked reverently. "There are several of these througout the castle, and most of them will be near rooms where we run into Dracula's Elite. We've often wondered if there is something... divine behind their placement, but there is no way to know." He smiled faintly. "Walter Bernhard's arrogance certainly continues to work in our favor."

"I definitely like it here, that's for certain. It seems like places like this are few and far between out among the other worlds. There's beauty plenty, of course, but it's usually hard for me to appreciate it due to my missions. I don't have time to rest and just appreciate the traquility of such places even when I do find them." Aqua frowned slightly. Perhaps she would make more of an effort to admire beauty when she next found it. "I'm not sure who you're talking about, of course. Is that the original builder of this place?" she asked almost idly as she gazed at the intricate carving of the angel statue.

"In a way, you could say that." Juste replied as he pulled some jerky out of one of his many pockets. "Earlier, when I told you about Dracula's origins? Walter Bernhard was the vampire whose soul Mathias stole. He had come to this area a century or so before. No one knows how old he was at the time – vampires gain in strength as they age – but what was known was that he was the holder of the powerful artifact called the Ebony Stone." He took a bite of the jerky and chewed for a moment. "The Ebony Stone was capable of cloaking the entire area around it in a perpetual night, and it also made its master nigh on invicible. Many tried to defeat Walter; none of them succeeded.

"Walter though, soon grew bored with his eternal life and decided to make things more interesting by challenging humans to try and hunt him. He achieved that by kidnapping whom they held most dear and holding them hostage. If they failed – and they all did, he either killed them or on rare occasions turned them. He allowed one of the few survivors, one Rinaldo Gandolfi, to live and run a shop outside the castle to make things easier for the hunters, and he also set up safe rooms in his castle, so the hunters could take rest breaks when needed. All of this was done in an attempt to make the game more fun before its inevitable end – he was invicible and he knew it.

"When Walter was defeated by Leon, his castle crumbled into ruin and remained that way until the 1400s, which is when Dracula summoned parts of it to create his own castle, the one we are currently in. That, we believe, is where the Sactuaries came from."

"So you think the leftover magic from Walter's castle was pulled in when Dracula rebuilt it (more or less)? Sounds quite probable to me," Aqua replied. She glanced at the statue again. "So on another subject, is this angel special at all to your religion, or is it just a regular angel? I know what angels are, of course, but I don't know anything about their ranks or names or if there are any special ones or if they're all equal, et cetera."

Juste looked over his shoulder at the statue. "This is the archangel Raphael," he said as he turned back around to face his audience, "he is the patron of travellers, physicians, blind people, and many others. He is strongly associated with healing, since in the Gospel of John, he is described as stirring the waters in the healing pool at Bethesda." He turned back to the statue and smiled at it. "I think he is a fitting guardian for these safe rooms."

"I would agree," she said with a smile, before questioning again. "An archangel, so like a leader over other angels? Are there many of those?"

"Yes, I suppose you could call them leaders. They are higher ranked angels, and they work very closely with God and carry out His tasks here on Earth. There are seven of them: Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, Raphael, Sealtiel, Jegudiel, and Barachiel. Sometimes in my faith, an eighth, Jerahmeel, is included with them as well."

"Those are rather odd names," she commented, a bit bemused. Even though she travelled to so many places and heard so many different names, she still thought that some of those angels had the strangest names she'd heard in a while. Then she shrugged and dug around in one of her pockets to find something to eat. She found some flatbread wrapped in a small waterproof bag, in case one of her potions broke, and broke a piece off to eat.

Juste smiled. "I would have to agree to some point. Gabriel and Michael are common boy names in most parts of the world, and Raphael also appears as a child's name off and on. The others though.. I have never seen a child with any of those names. I actually would like to name a son Gabriel, myself, but Lydie has her heart set on Richter, and it's easier to do what she wants." He laughed lightly.

"Is Richter a common name here?" She rather doubted it but she might as well ask. He was always so happy to talk about his family, and she couldn't say she minded hearing him speak with such enthusiasm. She smiled again.

"No, it is a German name that means 'judge'. I am not sure where Lydie learned it from, but I do like it."

"I see," she responded, though she wasn't familiar with German at all. She'd been to a few worlds where German was the primary language, but due to yet another traveller perk, her speech automatically assimilated to speak the world's primary tongue. She couldn't tell the difference herself, though, unless she had actually learned the language outside of her travels. She had done so with Japanese, as English was her first language, and she knew some Spanish, but if she wasn't fluent in the world's language, something about crossing into the world's atmosphere affected the parts of her brain responsible for speech and hearing, as well as reading where applicable, allowing her to interact fully with the world's inhabitants without needing to learn a few dozen languages.

Juste pulled out his pocket watch. "Dear me, we're been in here for over an hour already. Are you ready to move on?"

"Sure." She replaced the bread she hadn't eaten in the bag and returned it to her pocket, dusting her hands off afterward. Then she pushed herself to her feet. She had to admit, she'd miss the atmosphere of the sanctuary, but they really did need to get moving. There was an oncoming tide of darkness to stop.


	5. Chapter 5

**5.**

Juste stepped out of the sanctuary and onto the landing, and he looked up and saw that there was a hatch at the top of the staircase. "I'm going to check out that hatch," he said as he pointed up to it, "as well as the double doors just above us."

"Okay, want me to stay here?" she asked, looking for direction. This place was his forte, after all.

"That will be fine; I'll be back in just a second." He went up the crumbling stone steps to the doorway just above the sanctuary, and as soon as he neared it, he could feel the magic flickering across its surface. The door was sealed by magic, which made impossible to open, but he could see a small indent where the two halves of the double doors met, in the shape of a shield. Obviously a key of some sort was meant to go there.

He then went the rest of the way up to the top to the hatch, and found that, although it wasn't sealed, it was tightly closed, and he could not budge it. They were going to have to find a lever or switch somewhere to open it. He grumbled to himself about backtracking as he went down to meet Aqua.

"The door above us is sealed with magic, and we need a key to open it." he told her. "The hatch is also closed, so we're going to have to find a switch for it."

Aqua tilted her head. "If it's not an actual barrier covering it, I may be able to open it. My keyblade works on almost any lock."

"Try it then, but be careful."

She headed to the stairs and took a critical look at the door from a short distance away, as the platform right beside the door was too small for her to actually do the necessary movements required to use Stormfall's unlocking mechanic. Hmm...I don't think this will work after all. The shape of the lock made it clear it was likely to be a multi-part key pressed into the indentation. Keyblades don't usually work on puzzle locks. But there was no harm in at least giving it a go. She jumped a short distance back and directed her keyblade at the door's lock, willing it to open. Stormfall lit up and shot a beam of light at the door, but when it hit the lock, the light splintered, skittering across the door, and a force pushed back against her, nearly wresting her keyblade from her grasp as it rebounded hard. "W-what the..? What was that?"

Juste looked at the door and didn't bother to try and keep the disappointment out of his voice. "I had a feeling that it wouldn't be that easy. I don't know enough about your weapon to say for certain, but I would think that your weapon's ability can be resisted by the castle's own magic." He frowned in annoyanace. "That means we're going to have to trek through the castle to find the key before we can get in there."

"Lovely, dungeon puzzles," she commented with a trace amount of sarcasm. "I'm just really confused because I've never had my keyblade rebound like that. Usually if a lock won't be opened, the door lights up with basically a barrier across the whole of it. It's never been nearly ripped from my hand like that." She shook her head. "Where would you guess we'll find the pieces we need?"

Juste shook his head. "There is no telling; this castle is massive, and the placement of objects doesn't always make sense." He sighed. "At any rate, the only way to go is down, into the waterway."

"Fantastic," she answered, raising a brow. "Won't this be fun." Aqua eyed the gap nearby and remembered when they passed by it earlier, she could hear water trickling below and she knew that was where they needed to go next. Well aware that Juste would probably not be pleased with her for doing this, she failed to warn him as to what she was doing before she simply dropped off the edge near the staircase. She simply had no patience for tromping down several sets of stairs. Her way was much faster. She cast Aero while she fell, as it reduces physical damage including things such as walls and floors, and just as she came to the bottom of the drop, she also cast Glide, allowing her to land without injury. She looked back up at the distant ledge above where she'd left Juste. If need be, she knew she could always get back up by taking the stairs should he want to go a different route, but she hoped he would simply put up with her decision to proceed this way quickly.

Her attention was diverted by the water running fast beside her. The candelabras along the rock walls lit the area just well enough to see, but the movement of the water in the river-like channel caused the reflections of the tiny flames to flicker and jump unpredictably. This was not helped by the fact that not two feet away lay the edge of the ledge she'd dropped onto which resulted in a waterfall for the channel. She was glad that her control over the gliding spell allowed her to float in place instead of forcing her one direction or another, because if she'd fallen into the water, the depth of which she could not tell, she would likely have been swept along with the current, ending up who knows where.

Suddenly she felt a strong zap on her ankle, prompting a surprised, "Ow!" from her and she jumped to the side on the ledge to see a small plant wriggling in the space she had just been standing. She could have sworn it wasn't there when she landed, but her ankle was certainly complaining about it now. Is this killable? she wondered, and summoned her keyblade, smacking it once. It instantly appeared to die and vanished in a tuft of flame. "Ooookay..."

Juste didn't bat an eye when she jumped; so she could do that too. He cocked his head, and his slightly enhanced hearing allowed him to hear her touch down below, and it also gave him an approximate location. He silently cast a small spell to slow and cushion his fall to prevent injury, and then he too jumped.

The remains of the staircase that they had been standing on vanished as he fell below the castle, leaving him in just an empty shaft, and after a few short but intense seconds, he landed on a ledge just aside a swift flowing current and only a few feet away from a waterfall. Aqua was standing there as well, and she looked at him in surprise.

"I'll be honest; I sort of expected you to be annoyed at my simply jumping down here like that." She glanced back up at the staircase again, noting that it ended abruptly before reaching the ground. So it looked like they would have had to jump anyway.

"It would be rude of me to get angry at you for jumping when I was intending to do the same thing." he said with a small smirk. "Magic and vampiric ancestry have their perks, including allowing me to hear your little yelp. Was something waiting on you down here?"

"Not initially, from what I could tell, but then a little plant of some sort appeared and stung me? I killed it with my keyblade, but it was weird, with tentacles waving around."

"Ah, that was an Une. They stay mostly hidden until you're close, though you can spot their little green buds in the ground if your eyes are sharp. I expect to see them everywhere down here."

"I see. I'll keep an eye out for them now." She rubbed her ankle, then smiled and asked teasingly, "Well, where from here, oh great leader?"

Juste struck a pose and stuck his nose up in the air for a second, but he couldn't keep the serious expression, and he laughed. "Lydie would kill me." he said as he looked around. "We can go three directions. We can go behind us, or we can go over the gap to that ledge over there," He pointed to a barely visible ledge across from them. "or we could jump down the waterfall. That one I don't recommend just yet, but I have a feeling we'll have to go there anyway."

"We'll skip the waterfall for now then. We may as well stay on this side for now, so let's go back that way then," she nodded, approving the first action.

"Let us be away then." Juste said with a flourish and set off in that direction. "Most of the enemies here are ice or water elemental, such as that one up there." He pointed to a floating, blue human like being several feet in front of him. "We call those Frozen Shades. They look like human women, but they are wraiths – evil vengeful spirits that prey on the living. They attack by spraying ice crystals at you, or they can summon four large ice spears and hurl them at you, so be careful."

"Is everything in this place susceptible to fire?" she asked. "Then again, water is stronger than fire even if ice is not, so I suppose I answered my own question."

"Basically," Juste said as they approached the Frozen Shade that was hovering a few feet above the waterfall. The wraith began to summon her ice spears, so he simply raised his hand and blasted her with a large fireball, and then, while she was stunned, he attacked her with his whip. She arched her back and screamed, and vanished with a quiet tinkling sound. "Fire is a purifier, so it is very harmful to anything of a corrupted nature. Almost everything here is weak to holy or light elemental attacks as well."

"I see. Well, I've got fire magic aplenty, but I'm rather limited on light magic. I've got a knockback spell of sorts, but other than that I have only the light of my heart to assist me. Which to be honest isn't all that useful in battle," she added cynically. She summoned her blade just to have it ready, though she had no immediate use for it at the moment.

"Fire magic is sometimes all you need. Save the bigger attacks for Dracula and his Elite." He kicked a small croaking frog out of the path. "Also keep an eye out for the frogs. It may be hard to believe, but they can nearly nibble you to death if given a chance."

Aqua snorted in amusement at the frog comment while politely dodging the critters littering their path. One snapped at her with its sticky tongue, and she was surprised at the pain of it even though it only grazed her. The next time one went after her, she promptly stomped on its tongue as it flew at her, causing its owner to spaz out until she let it go. "I begin to see your point."

Juste smiled as he watched her stomp on the frog's tongue; he preferred kicking them, but whatever worked.

They walked down the path as it continued along its flat plane, but after a few minutes it began to run downhill, and the river seemed to vanish, being replaced by pools and small ponds of water. The path also ended there, which forced them to climb in and walk through it.

"I always hate this part." he grumbled "It feels fine in here until you get wet, but once you've gotten your clothes soaked, you'll feel like you're outside in the dead of winter. Hopefully we don't have much longer to go."

Aqua snorted in amusement at the frog comment while politely dodging the critters littering their path. One snapped at her with its sticky tongue, and she was surprised at the pain of it even though it only grazed her. The next time one went after her, she promptly stomped on its tongue as it flew at her, causing its owner to spaz out until she let it go. "I begin to see your point."

Juste smiled as he watched her stomp on the frog's tongue; he preferred kicking them, but whatever worked.

They walked down the path as it continued along its flat plane, and they encountered a few other monsters along the way, including a beautiful woman in a long blue robe that fired ice crystals in a similar manner to the Frozen Shades. Thankfully, it also was weak to fire and died quickly, vanishing with a scream.

"I've never seen one of those before." Juste commented as they continued. "I wonder why its voice sounded like a man's."

Aqua shrugged. "Maybe it's transgender," she suggested offhandedly. "Or likes to dress like a woman."

"Trans what?"

Aqua paused, and reevaluated her intended answer. "Never mind." This man was from a 18th century world. Transgender would be so far from his ability to grasp as to be straight-up impossible to work with. Especially given how religious he was.

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time I've encountered a man that liked to dress up like a woman. They appear quite often in European nobility, it seems." he added as they path they were on began to run downhill, and the river suddenly seemed to vanish, being replaced by pools and small ponds of water. The path also ended there, which forced them to climb in and walk through it.

"I always hate this part." he grumbled "It feels fine in here until you get wet, but once you've gotten your clothes soaked, you'll feel like you're outside in the dead of winter. Hopefully we don't have much longer to go."

As she joined him in the water, she said, "Maybe, but fire and wind spells can at least help by drying much of it if you're willing to pause for a minute. Then again, my clothes are also made from rather water resistant material, so they don't really absorb water that much as it is. Makes them a pain to wash, of course, but at least it makes field work that much easier."

"I wish I could get my hands on some of that material then." he said as they carefully walked along the splashing river. He noted an Une's bud up ahead and readied a small fire spell to deal with it. "All we really have is wool, linen, and occasionally silk. Silk is not practical, and wool can be... unpleasant when it gets wet."

He stepped up to the Une, magic at the ready, as the small bud became a mass of writhing tentacle like vines. Before he could cast though, the vines abruptly leapt upward, showing that they were only a part of something larger. Juste had just enough time to see a yellow body with short, stubby limbs, before the thing opened its mouth impossibly wide and _screamed_.

Aqua reflexively covered her ears to muffle the ear-splitting screech, and had just enough time to notice a bright white light shine out in front of Juste before he slammed into her due to some sort of shockwave, and his kinetic energy shifted into her, flinging her back into the water while he stayed safely upright. She hit the shallow pool with a loud splash, and came up sputtering, and exclaiming, "What is that thing?"

Juste could barely hear her over the ringing in his ears, and through the spots in his vision, he saw the creature explode into little yellow blobs before vanishing entirely. "I don't know. I've never seen that before. Whatever it was, I think it just killed itself though." He rubbed at his eyes and turned to face her. "Are you all right?" he asked as he offered a hand to help her climb out.

She accepted his hand, levering back onto her feet as the cold air chilled her skin but the water droplets rolled right off her clothes. She opened her mouth to answer him, but at that moment a wave of darkness swept across them both and Heartless popped into being around them. She jumped back, summoning her blade in the same motion. Her eyes quickly glanced across the group, standard Shadows and Blue Rhapsodies with two towering plants she'd never encountered personally but knew by their appearance were Ice Plants, and one that looked oddly like a...rose bush? With legs? "Watch out for the big Ice Plants," she warned Juste, "they shoot chunks of ice at you that hit much harder than the Nocturnes."

"Wonderful." he replied as he uncoiled the whip. "Hopefully they're easier to hit." He launched a fireball at the large rose with eyes, and he had just enough time to see it recoil from the blow, before he was forced to dodge to the side to avoid ice shards fired at him by the Nocturnes.

Aqua, alternatively, focused on the Nocturnes in particular, leaping from the water to slash them in the air simply to get them out of the way sooner, as the Ice Plants couldn't move from their location like these speedy demons. She cut down the nearest two and sent fire at two further away.

The rose tossed its head forward, almost as though it was trying to headbutt someone, but he stayed well out of range and launched more fir at it. A sharp scratch to his right ankle distracted him, and he looked down to see a Shadow clawing at his leg. A swift kick sent it flying across to the other bank, but before he could turn back to the rose, something large, sharp, and very, very cold hit the back of his neck. His neck and upper back muscles locked up from the sudden shock, but he was still able to step aside and turn to face one of the Nocturnes as it flitted away. He swung Sara out towards it, and he smiled when he scored a direct it. The Rhapsody exploded into black wisps, freeing him to turn back to the rose.

Not to be outdone, the Ice Plant nearest to Juste targeted him and started shooting much larger, and faster, chunks of ice at him instead.

Aqua dodged the attack of the second Ice Plant as she swept her keyblade towards the ground to slash at an attacking Shadow, which dissipated, and finished off the last Rhapsody with a targeted fire spell. She then headed to replace Juste with the rose bush while he fended off the Ice Plants.

He backdashed to avoid the larger chunks of ice and sent the whip flying over to crack one of the Ice Plants directly in the center of its... head? The creature shrank back as if in pain, and he gave it no time to recover. He unleashed a barrage of fire magic at it, followed by a whip strike that saw it explode as the Heartless before it had done.

Aqua closed in on the rose bush and moved to strike it when she suddenly had to block an ice pellet from the living Ice Plant from smacking her head on, and so she was quite unprepared when the rose reared its head back, closed its petals up tight, then plunged forward straight into Aqua's stomach. It flared its petals just after striking to propel her backwards. That they were petals was an unfair assumption, because they packed a major punch, and sent her flying back (splash-landing hard into the water again), as well as completely knocking the air from her lungs.

Juste heard the splash behind him as he turned his attention to the second Ice Plant. It reacted to the death of the other by firing off a rapd succession of ice shards at him, which forced him to dodge them before he could try and get a hit in. He then launched a Salamander spell at it, and twin columns of flame rose up around it, blocking it from view.

A whip strike destroyed a scuttling Shadow as the Salamander spell came to an end, leaving the large Heartless looking wilted and singed, but still alive.

Aqua scrambled out of the water as soon as possible, breathing carefully to get her lungs working again, glaring the rose bush as though she could will it to burst into flames from that alone. Alas, she was not pyrokinetic, and so she had to be a bit more hands on. She was a _little_ angrier than strictly necessary, however, so she sent a high-powered Firaga at the rose Heartless, obliterating it completely, leaving its heart to float unsteadily towards the ceiling of the waterway from a pile of ash.

A magic missile spell finished the Ice Plant off, and Juste turned around to look for the remaining Rhapsody just in time to see the rose die under Aqua's fire magic. The tinkling of tiny bells drew his attention to where the bell shaped Heartless was hovering around Aqua's head.

She was on a roll now, however, and spun to chop at the Rhapsody before Juste could so much as speak. "Shadow at your heels!" Aqua warned him as she now faced his direction.

He quickly turned and jumped back a few steps to get some room, before a single fireball finished the last Heartless off. The cavern then fell silent save for the running water, and their heavy breathing.

"Twice!" Aqua burst out suddenly. "That's twice I was thrown back into the _very cold_ water. That is ridiculous."

Juste laughed. "Maybe it has something to do with your name, Miss Aqua."

"Okay, my name might _mean_ water, and I might really like water, but that does not mean I deserve to be thrown into it repeatedly."

Juste laughed again, and he leaned against the cavern wall behind him for a moment. "I have to say," he said once he'd brought the laughter under control, "I'm rather surprised to see Heartless in here."

She mock-glared at him for laughing at her, but there was no heat to it. "I don't see why not; if they were out in the woods and around the town, why wouldn't they be here too?"

"The castle calls to souls, which I assume your Heartless don't have. If they have no souls, then what is calling them here? The only explanation I can think of is that whatever brought the Heartless here in the first place is indeed in this castle somewhere, though what this has to do with Dracula, I'm still unsure about."

"It's always possible that I could be drawing them with my keyblade. I've mentioned before it's like a beacon for them. But that wouldn't explain why they politely chose to be ones precisely suited to this part of the castle, with the primarily Blizzard theme. More often than not, there are Heartless that have adapted to certain worlds that you see more often on each world, but they do appear in completely random areas of those given worlds. They don't seem to send the cold ones to solely cold areas, or the fire ones to only hot areas. They can appear together or opposite or not at all. You would usually only see them forming in specific places if someone wanted them there."

"I am really beginning to believe that there has to be some sort of intelligence behind all of this. Creatures that appear in this castle do appear in areas most suited to them. The ice elementals always being down here is an example, so that makes me wonder just what is controlling things here."

"Well, we won't find out down here. Shall we move on?"

"Let's. I think you'd like to get some place warmer at least."

"I would appreciate that."

They continued on their way, following the river as it cut a course through the rock. The small , barely ankle deep pond they had been wading through deepened, until Juste could no longer touch the bottom, and he had to swim. Behind him, he heard Aqua grumbling, and he ignored it as he looked ahead of them. At least, he thought, he could see the other side, and the ground there was sloping uphill again. He was also beginning to feel a breeze on his face, which told him an exit to the area had to be nearby.

He staggered out of the water on the other side, and waited until Aqua had joined him. "I think now would be a good time to try that magic you mentioned, Miss Aqua, if you don't mind."

"Agreed," she managed to say between shivers, and immediately cast a fire spell between them, sustaining it with magic alone. The dampness of the cavern put more strain on maintaining the fire, but it was still not a problem for her. As that continued, she cast an altered, or perhaps customized, version of Aero that looped around the fire, Juste, and Aqua, distributing the heat of the flames between them. After a few minutes, their clothes started to become noticeably drier. She maintained the spells for a few minutes more until the cloth of Juste's coat was dry enough that she was sure his other layers were no longer too damp to be comfortable. Her own clothes had dried far more quickly due to its special material. Even the half-skirt she wore for a more feminine touch was completely free of water.

"Mmmm, nice work, Miss Aqua. Perhaps once this is all done, you can show me how to do that." He smiled at her. "Now let us move on. I smell fresh air, so perhaps we are near to the end of this place?"

"That would be nice, the lighting is starting to get to me," she commented, referring to the flickering along the water as it refracted the candle light dozens of times over yet illuminated no more.

"As strange as it may sound, you will get used to it by the time we leave the castle." he replied as they began to walk up the uphill slow. A small stream burbled and splashed beside them, forming little pools in depressions in the rock as it went. Thankfully they were able to walk beside it to avoid getting wet again.

The slope leveled out in a vertical shaft roughly carved from the rock, and small stone ledges jutted out from the walls, close enough for them to move upward by hopping from ledge to ledge. "Shall we?"

"Of course," she agreed, and wasted no time in jumping between the ledges. Such a feat was no difficulty for someone with her acrobatic skills, and she quickly reached the upper level.

Juste followed her, and upon reaching the top, a quick look around confirmed what area of the castle they were in.

"Great," he grumbled to himself, "The Castle Chapel."

Aqua overheard his mumbling and grimaced. "I take it this isn't a fun area."

In response to her question, he gestured to the massive area they were standing in, filled with ledges, hallways, stairs, and countless numbers of various monsters. "Dracula took something sacred and turned it into a place of misery for many. I'm not sure who he hates worse at this point: humanity or God." He shook his head sadly. "Anyway, what makes this place so difficult is the layout of the halls and stairs, which require a great deal of jumping around, and the large amount of difficult and annoying enemies."

He heard the sound of small wings beating the air behind him and turned just as an Imp swooped down where he had been standing. He raised his hand and zapped it with lightning from his fingers, which caused it to tumble down and vanish in a puff of smoke. "Those, for example, are Imps. They swoop down at you, like you just saw, and they like sticking the very tip of their little spear in your craw. Once they've done that, you'll do whatever they want until they either get bored or you shake them off. God help you if several get you at once."

"Ugh. Well, I suppose we might as well get on with it, since we've got to get through it sometime." Her expression shifted from annoyance to mild determination coupled with a sense of long-suffering.

"Well first, let's go see if we can get into that area that was sealed off earlier. I'm sure there is a path to it here, somewhere."

"Oh, will somewhere in here lead us there? What a disorganized place this is," she commented with a shake of her head. "Lead the way, you understand this castle better than I do."

Juste laughed, though there was no humor in it. "Most areas of the castle are connected in some way. Once we find a warp room, things will get easier." He sighed. "Let's get going then." He looked around to get his bearings. To their left was a long staircase, and he could see the Hill Guards standing in various places. It looked like a good place to start.

"Watch out for the ones wearing the blue armor and carrying the swords." he cautioned. "They can slide down the stairs while pointing their sword at you with amazing speed. The best way to deal with them is to get close enough for them to lunge at you and then back away quickly just before they move and strike when their guard is down." He looked at her as she nodded in understanding, and then he started up the stairs.

They made it to the top quickly – having two people certainly helped – and they were faced with a short corridor, filled with Ghost Dancers.

"Sometimes I wonder," Juste said as he struck one whirling couple with the Vampire Killer, causing it to dissolve into mist with a soft pained cry, "where Dracula collects all these poor souls. Did he summon them here? Did they die here? No one knows, nor does anyone know if they're set free when the castle crumbles."

"Do these actually do anything? They're rather difficult to see, but they don't seem to be attacking," Aqua stated as she stared out hard at the landing before them. She barely noticed what Juste hit with his whip before it was already gone.

He gave her a surprised look. "I see them very clearly. They are slightly transparent, but still solid enough to see. You cannot see them very well?"

"No, I can barely see them. If I didn't already know something was there, I could almost walk right past them. If they're really ghosts like they seem to be, they won't have hearts. Maybe that's the difference. Like how I can see your alignment, more or less, but you're much harder to read than the Heartless, or my friends back home. If these ghosts don't have evil intent, then there's nothing for me to really see," she postulated.

"Interesting. Perhaps when we next find a sanctuary, we can discuss this further, but for the moment, I'll just answer your previous question. No, they really don't do anything. They just waltz endlessly. If you touch one, their severe cold will burn you, so be careful. Stay behind me and let me handle them, since I can see them, and if I dodge or duck, you do the same immediately."

"Sounds good to me," she confirmed, and paid close attention to him as he systematically took down each pair. She followed his orders and moved when he did, trying to keep an eye out in case he missed any.

They reached the doors without any trouble – thankfully Ghost Dancers went down with one hit – and to Juste's happy surprise, the door at the end of the hallway leading to the previous area, the one they had been unable to reach before, was unlocked. The two of them looked at each other for a second, nodded, and then he opened the door and led her in. They walked through a short featureless hallway that he remembered seeing before in his previous visit, and they emerged onto a high wall surrounding a courtyard.

Or at least, he thought it was a courtyard. A thick cloud of darkness rose up to hide the area below, and it took him a second to realize that the area was completely silent. There was nothing there, not even any monsters, just the two of them and...

Wait.

His breath puffed out in front of him as they temperature began to drop.

"We're not alone here." he whispered. "Whatever you do, don't attack our visitor unless he attacks first."

"O-okay," she stuttered slightly, confused at Juste's comment as well as the odd nature of the courtyard and its absence of...anything, really. She kept her eyes moving, trying to find the danger Juste sensed. It felt strange that he would notice something dangerous before she did, but a lot about this place had been surprising.

Juste ignored Aqua's stutter and kept his gaze fixed on the spot that his senses were warning him about. Sure enough, after a few seconds, a long handled scythe with a massive blade appeared in midair, spun in a circle for a moment, and with a laugh, its owner appeared.

"Death," Juste said evenly.

Aqua automatically backed up a step as this new creature appeared out of nowhere. "What...what is that?" she murmured in a low voice. A floating skeleton and tattered cloak, wielding an overly large scythe...was this supposed to be a grim reaper or something? She felt like things in this world should stop surprising her, but it seemed the shocks were determined to never end.

"This is Death, Miss Aqua." Juste said calmly as he kept his gaze fixed on Dracula's servant. "He works for Dracula, and if the rumors are true," He nodded in Death's direction, "he's Dracula's close friend and confidant." He then tuned out her presence in favor of getting some answers. "Where is Dracula, Lord Death? Is he here?"

"As in the personification of death? How does that even exist? And here I was starting to think I was adjusting to this place..." Aqua muttered, watching the creature before them warily.

Juste ignored Aqua's muttering and kept his attention focused on Death, but he realized quickly that Death was not looking at him. Instead his eyeless sockets were focused on Aqua. What did he find so interesting about her?

"I have not seen one such as you before." the being said, and his voice echoed slightly, even though they were in the open air. Juste spared a glance at Aqua as she and Death looked at each other, and she was staring back at him with a pale face.

"And I suppose you know everything in the world?" she replied, keeping her sarcasm out of her tone. She could tell it was probably best not to antagonize an unknown element like this one. She knew nothing about Death, however, so really it was a legitimate question.

"I know much, magician from another world, and your kind is rare here. What brings you to my domain?"

Well, pointless trying to pretend she came from a different part of this world then. It clearly knew she was an outsider here. "The darkness grows, and it is my duty to destroy it. Are you going to block my path?"

"My master is not the origin of this darkness, traveler." Death's gaze swung to look at Juste. "I sense my master here, but the castle has not answered his call. It is here at the will of an intruder. I am unable to enter where the intruder has hidden himself."  
Juste followed Death's gaze as it moved over to the darkness covering the courtyard. "Down there?" He looked back to Death to see that he had vanished suddenly, and he turned to face Aqua.

"He wants us to help him."

"There's no way he's trustworthy." she argued. "Why would someone like that show us where to go?"

"You're right, he's not, but he wants the same thing as us – the intruder gone from the castle. I guarantee you though, he's planning something. His ultimate goal is Dracula's revival, and no matter what we do, we'll be playing into his hands."

"I suppose. Either way, we do need to get to the root so I guess we don't have much choice."

"Sadly true." He looked down at the courtyard, at the darkness covering it. "The intruder is down there, I'm certain, just as I'm certain that locked and barred door we saw above the sanctuary earlier is the way down there."

"If only it were safe to jump into a dark pit. Sadly that's a foolish thing to do. Around we go, I suppose."

"Indeed." Juste looked around and spotted a hatch at the other end of the courtyard wall, with the lever for opening it right beside it. "There is the hatch we saw earlier, and it looks as though we can open it from this side. We should do so, so at least we'll be able to shortcut around this are in the future if need be."

She followed his gaze to the lever. "Yeah, that's fine. Want me to run and grab it quick?"

"If you like. Once it's open, we can either return to the sanctuary for another quick rest, or we can go back the way we came and try to find the key to that door."

She jogged over to the lever and activated it, then rejoined Juste. "I don't think it makes much difference. We didn't do all that much since we last left it, so we might as well just move on."

"Agreed. Let us return to the chapel then. We can go from there. Just remember to stay behind me and let me handle the dancers. They'll have reappeared since we left the area."

"I know how that works at least. No matter how many Heartless you destroy, even with the keyblade, there always seems to be more that pop up in the areas you just left." Aqua sighed as they doubled back and she once again followed his orders fluidly as he got rid of the dancers. Once a pair got so close to her she actually felt the cold before Juste's whip forced them to evaporate. "They really are cold. I must have been really close to that one to have felt it without getting burned," she commented, flexing her chilled hand.

"Yes, they are nasty, but no one really knows if they are here of their own free will and if they're really evil or not." They walked out of the corridor onto the top of the staircase that they had ascended just a few minutes earlier, and they were able to walk right up behind the top most Corner Guard and destroy it from behind before it even knew they were there. As soon as that was done, however, Heartless popped from the air to further prolong their passage. Five Soldiers, two Lance Warriors, and a Creeper Plant behind him all stood in their way.

Aqua rolled her eyes and the travellers quickly brought the group of enemies to heel. Aqua took particular pleasure in using her barrier to bounce the seeds from the plant back into the Heartless' face.

Once that was done, Juste waved his hand to encompass what they could see before them."Where to, milady? This place is a maze, so no matter where we go, we're bound to run into dead ends, hidden areas, and various other things. We'll probably find bell towers, naves with pews and Holy Tables, maybe even a confessional, though they have no place in the religion that Dracula once followed. One of Dracula's Elite is bound to be in here too, lurking, and no doubt close by we'll find a sanctuary."

"Just start wandering, I guess. We'll get there at some point," she replied, looking out at the messy state of the area with a look of resignation on her face.

There was a good reason he hated the chapel area, Juste thought as he knocked yet another Imp away. They had been wandering for quite some time, and there was no end in sight yet. The Imps had already gotten them once for each of them, (and it had been very hilarious to see Aqua running around in circles as the Imp directed her with little puffs of smoke rising from its spear.) and those damned fallen angels with the bows made him want to scream.

They had found their path to the upper areas of the castle blocked by a large chasm that they couldn't cross, so they had been forced to backtrack. He hadn't been sure, as a wall had been in the way, but he'd thought he'd spotted the bright green glow of a warp room's doors on the other side of the chasm. They would have to check if they ever found another one. Currently though, they were in the lower levels of the chapel, and he was surprised to see no sign of any crypts, though he supposed they could be in a different area of the castle.

He was greatly relieved to see the glowing blue doors of a sanctuary. "Let's rest, Miss Aqua. My magic is low, as is yours, and we've been wandering for hours. We need to be rested to deal with the Elite that is no doubt close by."

"I'm totally up for that," she agreed irritably, as frustrated with the place as he was. They entered the sanctuary to find another beautiful indoor garden and softly glowing statue.

Juste touched the statue, and then he fished in his pockets for something to eat. He pulled out two meals, already cooked, sealed in wrapping, and shrunk down to small size under preservation spells. He unshrunk them, removed the spells, and handed one to Aqua. He then opened his own pack to find venison steak and potatoes. He sat down on the grass, leaned against the now dim statue, and began to eat.

Aqua followed suit and found a similar meal in the pack Juste handed to her. "Not bad. That's certainly a spell we don't have. It keeps the food from going bad? How long does it last?" she questioned as they ate.

"I've never fully tested its limits." he replied, "but I know that it lasts for several days at least. It's another one of my inventions. My wife did the cooking, and I did the spellwork."

"Wow, nice work. I never really thought about trying to make a spell for that because I usually finish my missions quick enough that I don't need much food to begin with, and what I bring with me is mostly nonperishable or long lasting sorts of things. Canned food, apples, and crackers, for example," she said, pulling out a couple apples from her supply pocket and tossing one to Juste.

He caught it easily. "Thank you." he said with a smile. He set his food down on the grass for a moment, reached into a pocket, and pulled out a glass bottle, which he then unshrunk and tossed to Aqua. "Bottled water. It was created with magic, so it will tingle a little going down, but drinking the water around here can be dangerous. I save it for the castle and drink ale and wine on the road." He then picked up his food and took a bite out of the apple.

"Thanks. No reason to waste my magic if you've already got something stored," she responded as she obtained the bottle, referring back to her ice water in the woods. "So, any new ideas about what we'll find now that we know Death is around?"

Juste pulled another bottle out, removed the shrinking spell, popped the cork, and took a drink. "Nothing different really." he said as he wiped at his mouth. "Death can order the monsters in the castle about to some degree, but it is Dracula they ultimately work for. However, the intruder seems to have usurped control of the castle, so there is little that Death can do but try and find a way to revive his master – or wait for us to do it for him somehow."

"Hm...I've been trying to think of anyone from my worlds that could be the cause of things here, but I haven't been having much luck. The main threat is definitely gone for good, and most of the others who've caused trouble in the past are either locked up where they can't escape or have no more desire to use the darkness anymore."

Juste crumpled up the empty paper his meal had been wrapped in, shrunk it, and stuffed in into a pocket. He then leaned back against the statue, and finished off the apple, core and all. He then took a drink from his water.

"Dracula is a master manipulator," he said, "and he was very charismatic as a human from Leon's accounts, so he has no problem finding those to do his bidding. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this, even the intruder, is his doing somehow, and Death was just left out of the loop for the moment."

"Well clearly something is off, given the presence of Heartless in this world. As far as I can tell, you've never had Heartless here before due to the distinct lack of hearts that they go for. That would imply that someone from my world is here, drawing them in. Maybe Dracula is involved here somehow too, but I can't help thinking that the 'intruder', as you say, has to be connected to my worlds in some way."

"It's entirely possible too that we're both right. Someone from your worlds came here, and something within them was dark enough to attract Dracula's attention. He hones in on those that are angry, hurting, and vengeful, because they are easy to manipulate. He manipulated Leon Belmont like a puppet on a string, and Leon never knew he was being directed until Mathias wanted him to."

"In that case, it certainly could be as you say. Those are the type of people that draw Heartless as well, so I can imagine that is what's going on. If I knew who we may be dealing with, I'd be able to formulate some kind of approach, but we're pretty much flying blind here." Aqua stared up at the glass windows as possibilities flitted through her mind. She didn't have any information on who could be awaiting them, though, so there was little she could do to plan. "Well, we'll find out soon enough, I imagine."

"Oh, we will." Juste stowed the empty bottle in his pocket. "Of that I have no doubt. Dracula was genius tactician in life, and sometimes we see hints of that. This is one of those times, I have a feeling. I don't know how I know, but it seems right."

"You have quite a long family history, don't you?" she asked half-rhetorically as she stored away her own trash. "I barely even remember my own parents. I moved away to board with my master when I was young, so I was never very close to them, and I definitely never knew any of my other relatives, let alone my family tree. Master Eraqus was the only parent I really needed, and Terra and Ven have always been like my brothers. That's the only family I know," she revealed with a small smile.

Juste smiled back at her. "The Belmonts have been hunting vampires for nearly 700 years. Before Leon, who was the first hunter, we know almost nothing of our history. We know that Leon was raised in nobility, that his parents died when he was very young, and that he was fostered by Mathias' family. Until Mathias betrayed Leon after his defeat of Walter Bernhard, they were brothers in all but blood.

"We have to keep careful track of everything since for a very good reason. The Vampire Killer has power of its own, but it forges a connection with its wielder, and that connection allows power to flow back and forth between the Belmont and the whip easily. That causes the whip's power, and even its appearance, to change depending on who's using it. The ritual that created it blood-bound it to Leon and his descendants, so only a Belmont of the main line can use it at full power. Go too far from the main line, and the connection between whip and wielder will not form fully, which has disastrous consequences."

"Your weapon is very different, I'll say that much. I've come across a lot of unique weapons in my life, but I don't believe I've met anyone that fights with a whip."

Juste rolled his eyes. "That's because Leon was an idiot. The man was a skilled swordsman and a brave leader, but he could be stupid. Sara Trantoul, his betrothed, was kidnapped by Walter, but the church refused to grant him permission to go search for her, since he was needed in the Crusades that were going on in the east. To get them to leave him be, he renounced his knighthood and his title of Baron, and decided that since his sword belonged to his company, he couldn't take it with him. He left his weapon, a weapon he was very skilled with, behind and ran to Walter's castle unarmed. There he met an old man that lived on the grounds with Walter's permission, and the old man, Rinaldo Gandolfi, gave him a magical whip that had been created using alchemy.

"Later when Leon found Sara, she had already been bitten by Walter and was turning into a vampire. The only way to stop it was to kill Walter so his power would stop causing the transformation, but the whip could not hurt him due to the Ebony Stone. Sara, knowing that she was doomed, and hoping to spare others her fate, sacrificed herself to create the Vampire Killer, which allowed Leon to defeat Walter."

"Wait, hold on. Not only did he go to the castle of a vampire unarmed, but his love sacrificed herself to become a magic weapon?" Aqua pressed a hand to her temple, not entirely sure how she felt about this. "Why? How can stupidity even account for such a horrendous decision. And why do you still use a weapon that was created in such circumstances? Surely there are other options that could be found that aren't the result of a blood sacrifice."

"Leon wised up after that, quit being so naïve and trusting," Juste sighed. "But in some ways he reacted to the loss of his love much the same way that Mathias did. He didn't blame God or anything – he reserved his anger for Mathias, whom he would never see again, but he was very angry after that, and he took that anger out on every vampire he met." He looked at Aqua, who was fuming at Leon's actions. She was not going to like how the whip was truly created; he could already see that.

"It wasn't a blood sacrifice, Miss Aqua."

"And how is it not? It cost her her life to give Leon the power to destroy the one who hurt them. That sounds like a blood sacrifice to me." She ran a hand through her hair in an action of agitation, and she shook her head as if to deny the facts. "Unbelievable. Keyblades are a manifestation of one's heart. The ability to wield them can be passed on or discovered spontaneously, but the blade itself is always a match to one's heart. It doesn't require anyone to die to make a Keyblade work, which the exception of the X-blade, but that's an aberration and it doesn't count," she muttered huffily.

Juste glared at her, but she didn't see it. "It was not a blood sacrifice because she did not sacrifice any. She sacrificed her very soul." He held the whip out so she could see it. "Sara's tainted soul resides in this whip, and it is her anger, her desire for vengeance, that powers it. A tainted soul cannot pass on to the afterlife, Miss Aqua. Sara would have been forever trapped in limbo upon her death, -if- she died at all. A vampire is much harder to kill, and once she turned, Walter could have controlled her at will. She knew that, so instead of choosing either one of those, she chose the only option available to her; helping Leon to ensure that Walter could never do such a thing to another innocent.

"As to why we still use it? It is simple. This whip is the most effective weapon against vampires and other creatures of the night. This whip -destroyed- the Ebony Stone, something that no other weapon had succeeded in doing before. Yes, other weapons can be used against vampires, werewolves, and other monsters, but they will be nowhere near as effective as the Vampire Killer. That warg that I killed back in the entrance? The one that was destroyed in one hit and burned in a purifying fire? A regular weapon would have had to destroy the heart, or cut the head off, to destroy the beast. And finally, even though she committed a willing sacrifice, Sara's soul is -still- tainted. Even if I were to destroy the whip right now and set her free, she would have nowhere to go."

Aqua just stared at him for a while after that revelation, struck utterly speechless. "She's -still there-? She didn't just power the weapon, but she IS the weapon, and has been for seven centuries by now? That, that's just...Ugh!" She temporarily lost the capability to form coherent sentences in her anger, and just released an explosive sound to reflect her rage at this blatant example of cruelty. How horrible must that be, to be trapped forever in a weapon created to kill dark creatures, and even if you were to be released from that, you would still never be able to find rest, all because of something you had absolutely no control over?

She jumped up and started pacing to try to dispel some of the negative energy filling her mind. "This world is insane! You people with souls are so impossibly complicated! The one thing to look forward to about death is the promise of rest and release from the pain and suffering that is part of living. And that can get taken away from you even though you had no choice in the matter? A vampire bites you so you're damned to never find rest when that is absolutely no fault of yours? I can't believe this! I have never been so grateful to be made the way I am, because at least when I die, no matter how it happens, I'll be free! How can having a soul like you do in this world be worth it if this is something that can happen?"

Her speed had picked up as she ranted furiously, until she took one step too close to Juste and suddenly found herself blasted back for no apparent reason. She crashed against the stone statue, which thankfully was too solid to be damaged by her impact. She cracked her head against the angel and felt bruises forming all along her back. Aqua rolled off to the side as she regained the ability to think. "Ow...what the hell just happened?"

Juste ignored her at first, as the agitated soul of the whip crackled in his hand. "Easy, Sara," he soothed. "Miss Aqua's just upset at what happened to you. She didn't mean any threat." The whip settled down, Sara's rage subsided, and Juste stood up to walk over to Aqua, hanging the whip from his belt as he went.

He uncapped a potion vial and handed it to her, and once she had drank it, he helped her to her feet. "That, Miss Aqua, was Sara being less than happy with your behavior, specifically you acting very angry and enraged while too close to me. Sara is protective of us, the descendants of the man she loved, and she lashes out like that when needed to keep threats away from us. If I had been standing and ready for an attack, she would not have responded, but since my guard was down, she reached out to shield me from any potential threat you might have posed."

The potion helped, soothing her pain and healing up any damage her body sustained. "I take it she's not completely aware of what's happening then, or else she'd know I had no intention of hurting you," she commented, carefully feeling the back of her head to make sure everything healed fully. The spot where she'd hit the rock was a bit sore, but otherwise seemed fine. Well, at least the shock of being blown into the angel statue caused her anger to subside considerably.

"Not completely no. She runs off the emotions of those near her more than anything, that and the light of their own soul. You soul is small and dim, so you likely had her wary from the start, but then you became angry and approached me..." He shrugged and looked at her seriously.

"Miss Aqua," he said in a gentle tone. "God does not hate Sara, nor would He bar her from His side, but vampires, demons, and other such creatures are the work of Satan, and nothing of Satan's can enter God's Heaven. Her willing sacrifice normally would have guaranteed her a place, but the taint of her soul prevents her from entering. It was Walter, not God, that prevented her from finding peace.

"It is possible to purify one's soul before death, and many choose to do so, but Sara never had that choice. The only way to cleanse the taint from her would have been to defeat Walter before she turned, but without her soul to power the whip, Walter could not be defeated. Leon did try, but it was futile, so Sara made the best choice she could, and accepting it broke Leon so thoroughly that he was never the same again. He married eventually, and he fathered children, but he never loved anyone like he loved Sara, and he died a heartbroken shell of the man he once was."

Aqua couldn't quite prevent an incredulous snort from escaping. Normally she was not dismissive of religion, rather she found it fascinating, but in this situation where it seemed clear that his religion truly did play a role in how this world operated, she couldn't help herself. I'm sorry, she thought, but if your heaven doesn't accept a soul that was tainted against her will, there's a fundamental problem, and that is something your God should have the power and mercy to rectify, or else the very tenets you place your faith upon are faulty.

"This entire story plays out as a series of unfortunate events, doesn't it?" she commented, folding her arms as a sad expression crossed her face. "Regardless how I may feel about any of this, it just seems like very little has gone right in this history."

"Sadly, you are correct, and I hope that someday, we'll be able to free Sara, cleanse her soul, and send her on to join Leon, but who knows when that will happen. As selfish as it sounds, as long as Dracula lives, Sara's soul is needed to power the strongest weapon against him. Perhaps one day we can destroy the Crimson Stone and stop his resurrections from occurring, but for now we do not know how."

He pulled out his pocket watch to checked the time, put it away, and then looked at Aqua. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah. We should get moving," she agreed. She'd already picked up everything she was responsible for and her health was stable, so it was certainly time to move on so they could finish this.

Juste did a quick check of his pockets, and then he led the way out of the sanctuary. They turned left once out in the corridor, and he was grateful that corridors with Sanctuaries were normally empty of Dracula's servants. They walked down the hallway, and as they neared the door at the end, a flare of rage from the whip gave him pause.

"There is an Elite on the other side of this door." he said as Aqua came to a stop beside him. "A powerful one, if Sara's reaction is anything to go by."

"Okay, so is this similar to the giant skeleton from before? Was that an elite?"

"That was an Elite, yes, but this one is much, much more powerful. Sara did not warn me about the giant skeleton, but she is warning me about this, and I can feel something on the other side, something, large, evil, and dangerous. Can you feel it as well?"

She concentrated briefly. "I sense darkness but it's...strange somehow. I don't really know how to describe it. Scattered, maybe? Like there's a definite center to the darkness but it's sort of diluted as it gets farther out, sort of in a spherical manner. It's just odd. Heartless signatures are easy for me to see, simple to understand, but this is something else."

Juste looked at her sharply. "Spherical, you said?"

"Yes," she confirmed, giving him a confused look in return. "That's what it feels like. You know what's in there? Something you've fought before?" she guessed.

He closed his eyes. "Legion." he growled. He opened his eyes and looked at her. "You are correct; I've fought Legion twice before, and it is very dangerous. Legion is the one who is many, and it consists of a core, with many tentacles that can shoot beams of burning light at you. It surrounds itself with a shell of bodies, some living, some dead, and you must destroy that shell before you can attack the core. Until the shell starts breaking away, it is mostly harmless. Touching either it or the bodies will hurt you, but it doesn't attack other than dropping corpses, either directly on your head or nearby. Dropped corpses will try to run and hit you. Once the shell starts coming apart, any exposed tentacle will attack. If the entire shell is destroyed, it gets very nasty, with all tentacles attacking at once."

"Guess I'll be abusing Aero to keep those corpses off me then," she muttered as he described the enemy in the next room. "I don't suppose there's any way to just go around it and not fight it?" she asked, knowing the answer would be no.

"Not this time. Our other path is closed off, remember? That's why we came this way to begin with."

She sighed. "Thought I'd ask anyway. Any particular weaknesses or specific ways to attack that are more effective than others?"

"No real weak spots. Anything and everything works against Legion, though as I said in the sanctuary, the Vampire Killer, and your weapon as well, will probably do more damage than most."

"All right then. Something tells me this is going to be quite the pain, but it's not just going to go away. The darkness seems to be mostly in the floor right now, so watch for that."

"Agreed, Legion likes to rise from the floor when threatened. It'll then hover about head level above it." He took a deep breath. "Shall we?"

"No time like the present, I suppose. Let's get on with it." She summoned her blade in preparation and they pushed open the door.

Juste took a deep breath and called his magic to the surface and rested his hand on the Vampire Killer as they walked in. His first step on the other side of the door make a loud crunch! and he looked down to see the floor littered with human bones. He then looked up and scanned the large brick walled room with its grotesque stained glass window of demons feasting on the innocent, and saw that the entire floor was covered in bones. He grimaced at the thought of all those that had to have died to create the covering on the floor, but thought was stricken from his mind when the room began to shake.

Aqua also glanced down at the sound of the bone cracking and frowned. That was going to make footing rough. She'd have to keep it in mind as she moved lest she stumble on them.

"Remember," Juste said to Aqua over the loud growling that filled the room, "do not destroy the shell. We only have to expose the core." He took a step backwards as a fountain of bones erupted from the center of the floor.

She nodded in response to Juste's reminder and watched in morbid fascination as a giant mass of bodies rose from the ground to hover in the air above the bone-covered floor.

Juste flung out twin daggers in front of him as a line of corpses dropped to the floor and began to shamble towards him, and he forced himself to not look into their eyes. These poor souls were past all point of saving; the only thing to do for them was to end their misery so their souls could move on.

With the pathway clear, he stepped closer to Legion and lashed out with the Vampire Killer, attacking the lowermost part of the shell, and tried to ignore the screaming that came from it. He knew he could use some magic to make it go faster, but he had to be careful on which spells. Destroying the entire shell would be disastrous.

Aqua followed not far behind as Juste cleared the way, and her brow furrowed as he whipped the shell and some bodies screamed. 'These are alive? Ugh...' She repressed a shudder and leapt toward the monster. While it was important to attack near the area Juste did to avoid breaking more of the shell than necessary, she also needed to be far enough to keep out of his weapon's way. She chose a spot and slashed, her blade slicing through whatever magic held the creature together and a couple of the bodies fell to the bones below.

Juste sent two more daggers flying to clear more dropping bodies, but a warning growl from Legion made him jump back several steps.

"Aqua, get back!"

She jumped back, Legion made a sound that was somewhere between a snarl and a growl, and then dozens of screaming bodies began to tumble to the floor and shamble towards them.

She stared at them for a moment before rolling her eyes briefly and casting Aero on herself. 'What an annoyance.' She then dashed at the enemies, Aero protecting her from their touch, quickly ripping her Keyblade through them. After a short time, with Juste's whip assisting, they tore through the ranks and the path towards Legion was once again cleared.

Aqua returned to the base of the monster, casting Fire Spin as she rammed her blade up. The fire added extra damage, judging by the screech she heard shortly afterward, and jumped back in case of retribution. A good instinct, as it happened, as a tentacle shot out through the hole she'd made in the shell. Had she not moved, it would've struck her dead on.

Juste saw the first section of the shell, the piece directly underneath the core, collapse, and he cheered inwardly. They only needed to get the other sections around it, and then their attack of the core would be relatively easy.

He ran forward again and attacked the next section, a large area on the side of the shell, above the area that Aqua destroyed. The single tentacle that had appeared shot a beam of light uselessly at the floor, and he called forth his magic and cast Magic Missile. Small bursts of ice erupted from his hands and honed in on the shell in front of him. The part of the shell crumbled, and he jumped to the left to avoid the beam that came shooting out of the now exposed tentacle. A second later though, Legion growled again, and he jumped back as the floor was covered in screaming corpses once again.

Aqua gave the new corpses a flat look. She had been holding back on her magic because she hadn't wanted to accidentally do more damage than expected, but it was starting to grate on her. Magic was her specialty, not melee like Terra. And now there was a new wave of corpses, and she had no intention of running through them again. She cast Firaga with the intent on it plowing through the line of bodies, as her magic was strong enough that it wouldn't stop after hitting something as feeble as a walking corpse or two.

Juste eyed her fire spell, and then he looked at the new corpses that were constantly dropping from Legion's shell. Yes, the rest of the shell would survive something a little stronger. He called for Aqua to back away, and once she had done so, he cast Heal Spiral, and the spiraling flame that appeared whirled around in widening arcs, damaging the shell without destroying it, but most importantly, it destroyed the falling corpses before they could hit the floor.

He stepped forward to continue his melee attacks, and he noticed his spell just as it crossed paths with Aqua's medium sized fireball. The two touched, there was a loud hissing, and then Juste found himself thrown backwards as a bright light filled his vision. A loud explosion rocked the room as he slammed into the wall and slumped down to the floor in a daze.

Aqua watched the corpses burn, and just as she jumped forward to recommence her attack on Legion's mass, she was blasted back in a blaze of light and sound. She too crashed into a wall, her body rolling like a ragdoll across the bones following the impact. Her ears ringing and senses dulled, she forced herself up and immediately looked around for Juste. Upon seeing him dazed but alive, she turned her sluggish attention to the flesh-covered monster. Only...that wasn't quite the case anymore. That explosion, whatever it was, had clearly done a ton of damage to the creature, but had also destroyed its entire shell, and now Legion was a smaller ball of rage and furiously flailing tentacles.

"Damn," she muttered, barely able to hear herself as the ringing refused to fade. "This won't be good."

Juste heard the sound of beams being fired over the ringing in his ears, and he raised unfocused eyes to see what he had so wanted to avoid.

The shell was completely gone, and Legion's core and every single one of its tentacles was free of its confines. He blearily reached into a pocket and grabbed a healing potion, and he quickly drank it down. Almost immediately, he felt his headache fade, his vision cleared, and the ringing in his ears stopped, and he dragged himself to his feet and looked around for Aqua. He spotted her standing on the opposite side of the room, looking at Legion in horrified fascination. He shook his head to clear the last of the cobwebs from it and called out to her:

"Look out for the beams! They will seriously hurt you!"

No sooner had he said that than the single tentacle seemed to aim at him, and he dodged to the side as the fleshy cover at the end opened, and beam fired right where he had been standing.

Aqua cast a Cura just in time to hear Juste's warning. She was unsure if her magic shield would block them, but she really hoped it would. Timing was everything with magic, and if she got hit in the process of casting a longer spell, her magic shield might be the only defense she'd have at the time.

This was hardly the time to hold back; it was important to just deal as much damage as quickly as possible now to take Legion down before it killed them instead. She dodged one of the lasers ('Lasers? Seriously?') and paused, throwing her shield up in the event that it worked and began to summon a meteor again as she had outside the castle. Just as her shield dropped and she cast the magic, a tentacle spraying something undoubtedly horrible glanced off her, catching her arm in its path. Aqua screamed in pain and she jumped back further to give her enough space to see what happened and fix it. She quickly turned her tearing eyes to her arm. Whatever the stuff was had eaten straight through her left sleeve and looked like it was dissolving her skin as well. 'Acid?!' she cursed mentally, and immediately cast an ice spell on her arm to slow and hopefully neutralize the acid so she could have time to heal the damage.

Juste saw her magic attack strike the core, and he cast Hydro Storm again, since there was no worry about destroying the shell anymore. No sooner had his spell ended however when he heard Aqua scream. The sound made him whip around to see her jump back away from Legion as a single tentacle sprayed out a foul smelling fluid all over the floor where she had been standing.

Aqua leapt aside from another beam and pulled out a Potion, dumping the contents over the burns as her ice melted. Thankfully that appeared to stop the acidic properties. She could hardly think through the pain from the gouges in her arm, her nerves screeching at her, but she forced the sense away as she dodged a new beam. Finally, she was able to cast Curaga, and Aqua nearly wept as the magic soothed her burns and knitted new flesh together.

"Miss Aqua!" Juste ran over towards her. "Are you all right? What happened?" His eyes widened when he saw the damage to her arm, the missing sleeve and the severe burn; Legion had never done that before! She dodged another beam from a second tentacle and cast her healing spell, and his eyes widened a second time when he saw her arm heal itself as though she had never been injured.

She then looked up at something behind him, and he turned around to see every other tentacle opening, something that he had never seen before, and those began to spray that foul liquid about the room as the core rotated in place.

"God save us." he whispered, and then he began sidestepping to the right as the nearest spray closed in on him. He didn't have time to see if Aqua was avoiding it as well, he had to worry about getting out of the way without getting splattered. Legion paused, and then it resumed rotating, though it was in the opposite direction this time, and Juste skipped across the uneven floor, trying to remain within a small area of safety between the tentacles, but he stumbled on some long dead soul's skull, and a small amount of the liquid splashed onto his leg.

He howled as it ate through his trouser leg before his very eyes, and he hastily summoned a water spell to wash it away before it did to him what it did to Aqua. Still, once the burning had stopped and the water spell had ended, he clearly saw the reddened skin and the large blisters that the acid had left behind. He kept stumbling to his left as Legion kept moving, and he fished a healing potion out of his pocket and poured it directly on the burn. He tossed the vial aside and pulled out a second one, which he then drank. The blisters shrank, and the redness vanished, and Legion finally came to a stop.

Once it became clear that Legion was going to continue spewing the acidic liquid all over for an indeterminable amount of time, Aqua jumped into the air and Glided, keeping her shoes off of the bones as they hissed and melted. She occasionally dropped the Glide briefly to avoid a tentacle before resuming the Glide. As she slowly circled the room in the air, she dropped again to avoid another stream, only for it to shift direction-right into her path. Completely by instinct derived from years of fighting, she threw her shield up...and it worked. The spray splattered against the shield but didn't go through. Marvelling at the gloriously welcome but unexpected fortune, she returned to the ground as the acid dissipated and Legion ceased its rotating.

"Update, magic shields can repel the acid!" she called to Juste. But she fully agreed with his own statement: it was time for Legion to die. Again, as it were.

"We have to end this," he said, "now." What if that spray had hit one of them in the chest? Or the face? They had to destroy this thing, quickly.

Aqua fully agreed with his statement: it was time for Legion to die. Again, as it were.

Calling up his fire magic, Juste summoned a phoenix, a bird of light and fire that no abomination would be able to handle, and it rained fire down on the room. Legion screeched in pain, and Juste dodged a beam and backed away.

"All right, we should attack it at the same time, it might overwhelm it and do more damage that way," she suggested, cartwheeling away from another beam and towards Juste, fortunately not slipping on the bones. Receiving an affirmative nod from him, she readied her blade and cast Triple Blizzaga.

Realizing that this was not the time to worry about conserving his magic, Juste cast the most powerful spell he could. A hail of meteors began to rain down, and Juste felt his heart stop when once again he saw his magic combine with Aqua's. Hopefully this wouldn't kill them as well as the Elite... The magic met, combined, there was a flash, and when it cleared Juste saw large meteors of ice raining down on the core. Legion growled, and the tentacles opened once again, but then a single meteor landed directly on top. The large stone shattered into pieces, and for a moment, Juste feared that it had done no good, but then, he saw the tentacles on Legion's top slow and still as a blue-white crust began creeping up them.

More icy stones rained down as Juste poured more power into the spell to keep it going. He saw Aqua doing the same, and more of them crashed down on Legion. The crust spread with a loud crackling sound across the surface of the core and down the tentacles, and Juste grinned, despite the fact that he was beginning to shake from magical exhaustion as the creature went still and began to sink down towards the floor.

Finally, one final, large ice meteor slammed into the frozen monster and it shattered into thousands of pieces. Aqua immediately slid in front of Juste and cast her barrier around them to shield them from the sharp slivers. The air filled with frost dust, and as it settled, Aqua couldn't help releasing a victorious cheer as she saw the creature was no more, but rather scattered across the room in tiny chunks. A bit morbid, but still satisfying after the trouble it caused them.

She noted Juste's exhaustion and immediately reached for his arm to support him. From their previous conversations and her own experience with it, she knew it was magic exhaustion. "Would you like one of my ethers if we don't find a sanctuary nearby? I have plenty."

He thought about refusing; there was a sanctuary not too far away after all, but his stomach clenched angrily as his head swam, so he swallowed the urge to be sick and nodded. He took the uncapped vial that she offered him and drank it down, and he had to swallow several times to prevent it from coming right back up. Still, after a minute, he felt his dizziness fade a little, and he didn't think he was going to faint, but his magic levels were still very low.

"Let's return to the sanctuary we were at earlier." he said as he wiped sweat from his forehead and shivered at his own hand touching his skin. "I need to rest for a while to let my magic recover."

She nodded and supported him across the icy bones on the ground, ignoring any possible protests he might make. He was not well, and she was not about to risk him slipping on the ice in this state; she didn't want to have to heal a cracked skull. She retraced their path to the sanctuary. Thankfully it wasn't far. She opened the door and the soothing air of the refuge greeted them. The angel statue had regained its properties in the time since they were there, and she released Juste when they were near enough to touch it as she knew it would help him recover more quickly. She also touched it and felt the magic she herself had depleted begin to rapidly replenish. She flopped onto the grass as the magic relaxed her muscles and skin. She closed her eyes unconsciously.

Juste raised a shaking arm and felt his magic levels rise as the statue's glow faded and vanished. His shaking decreased, but he was still very tired and in no shape to do any fighting. He shrugged his coat off, tossed it to the grass at the statue's feet, tugged off his breastplate, and sat it on the ground next to his coat. He then laid down on his coat, rested his head on his arms, and closed his eyes.

"I'll be fine after I sleep for a few hours." he mumbled sleepily. "Wake me, will you?" He fell asleep before she could answer.

"Sure," she responded, not noticing he was already long gone. She fully intended to as well, but then a wave of weariness swept over her. Her body had gone through a massive regeneration due to healing the acid burn earlier, after all, and now that she was out of danger (indeed, far from it here), it demanded she pay the price. She too fell into a deep sleep to recuperate.


	6. Chapter 6

**6.**

Juste felt himself come awake, but he extended his senses before opening his eyes or moving. He knew immediately that he was in a sanctuary inside Castlevania, and he felt Aqua's presence nearby. He could hear her slow, even breathing and realized that she was asleep. Satisfied that they were in a safe place, he opened his eyes, sat up, and stretched. His magic levels were normal, and the symptoms of exhaustion had faded away while he had been asleep. He put his breastplate back on, stood up, put his coat back on, and then walked over to Aqua.

"Miss Aqua?" he called softly as he lightly touched her shoulder. "Miss Aqua?"

She growled and attempted to escape waking up by rolling onto her stomach away from the annoyance. She was not a morning person.

Juste smiled faintly; he had been that way as a boy, but he had outgrown it. He tried calling her again, but she only grumbled something and didn't move again. Fine, well then, he would try his grandfather's tried and true method of getting reluctant risers up and moving. He moved a few steps away, sat down, pulled a meal pack out of his coat, and unwrapped it. He then used a little magic to heat it just enough to send the delightful scent of the meat and vegetables spiraling up from it. He then used a little wind magic to gently blow the scent over to her.

As the aroma of hot, delicious food registered in her sleepy mind, she rolled back over and blinked her eyes open and sought out the source of the food. She found Juste just a couple paces from her, and she glared when she saw him smirk slightly in triumph. She sat up and stretched, unwillingly perhaps, but she was up and they had things to do.

His smirk widened at her glare, but he pulled out another meal pack, released the spells on it, and tossed it to her, followed by a bottle of water. He then pulled a second bottle out of his pocket and began to eat.

"At least the Elite don't reappear after defeat." he said between bites.

"No kidding. I would honestly debate turning right around and walking out of here if we had to face that again," she replied, starting in on her food. "I can be a bear to wake up, I'm surprised you didn't just dump water on me," she commented a few moments later.

Juste just barely managed to swallow the bite he had just taken before he started laughing. "That was Grandfather's preferred method when I was younger, but he quit doing that when he found out that startling someone with high magic levels was not the smartest thing to do. When I was about 13, he woke me up that way, and I lashed out as I woke up, thinking I was being attacked. I buried him in ice and snow and had to hastily dig him out before he froze. He was unhurt, but he never did that again, and it was just as much as a lesson for me as it was for him. Never startle a magic user." He smiled fondly at the memory for a moment, and then he took another bite.

Aqua burst out laughing as well as he told his story. "I do believe I threw Ven against the wall once not long after he first arrived at our home when he came bounding into my room one morning and jumped on my bed to wake me. I was torn between panicking over possibly hurting him and the smug feeling of vindication."

"Younger sibling? Or something along those lines? My sister never did that with me, because she has a great deal of magic herself and knows that doing so would be a bad idea. Our cousins on the other hand..." Juste trailed off and grinned.

She smiled and responded, "Mm, something like that. Ven is something of an adopted little brother to Terra and me. While Terra and I grew up together since we were young, Ven didn't come until we were around 16. He's a couple years younger and way more excitable than the both of us put together. We may not have known him for as long as each other, but Terra and I both adore him anyway. He's important to us, and we're important to him. We're family."

"Sometimes the closest family is the family you chose." Juste said, thinking of Lydie. He then crumbled up the paper his meal had been wrapped in and incinerated it with a quick burst of magic.

"That's always been true for us. None of us really have any memories of our blood relatives anyway, Ven even less so." She stretched her arms in front of her just after burning her own wrapper and immediately froze. "My sleeve! It's completely ruined!" she moaned, pulling at it and investigating the damage the acid had done the day before. She had been a bit occupied before, trying to stop her arm from dissolving, so she only now really noticed it.

Juste reared his head back in surprise. "Yes, and my trouser leg is ruined." he said, rotating his leg to show the gaping hole. "At least it wasn't your arm."

"You don't understand, my clothes are resistant to all kinds of elemental damage. They barely burn, they never tear, they are very hard to stain. And yet that acid burned right through them like it was nothing!" she explained angrily. "Replacing this is going to cost me a ton, it was custom designed for me."

"I understand that part, but again, at least it wasn't your arm. I'd never seen Legion do that before, so we were very lucky in there. Legion is a rare Elite, Hector is the only person other than me to have faced it, and that was back in 1479 during Dracula's first resurrection, and Hector had never reported the beams that it fired. He said it only threw corpses at him until he destroyed the shell."

"So it's safe to assume it adapts every time it resurrects," she concluded in a grumpy tone. "I don't think I've ever actually been burned by acid before. None of the Heartless I've fought use it, and the only time I've ever encountered it was when Ven and I went to Halloween Town and he knocked over a bottle of hydrofluoric acid in the doctor's nightmarish lab. He accidentally touched it and it started eating away at his skin. That's why I hoped the treatment I used then would work here. Thankfully it did."

"We wouldn't have needed it though if our magic hadn't done the unexpected." He smiled. "I hadn't been expecting our magic to combine so... explosively."

Aqua snorted in an unladylike manner. "That's almost an understatement. I have no idea what happened; one moment things were going fine, the next everything went to hell," she said flatly.

"Well, we -had- talked about trying a dual crush; I just hadn't been intending for it to happen that way. Though, we now know we can do that, which will certainly come in handy later."

"Does it always produce the same effect? Honestly, I've never seen that sort of magic before. A giant explosion like that, and -ice- meteors? Certainly not the sort of things I've ever seen in my experience, which is pretty broad at this point with all the different worlds I've been to. Then again, as I've mentioned before, so much in this world is new to me."

"Most Belmonts go solo against Castlevania and the monsters inside it, so dual crushes are rare inside the castle, but outside of it, either during training missions or when we're taking care of lesser vampires and demons, we use them whenever we can, since they do so much damage for relatively little magic cost. The effects seem to vary depending on the spells used, and who initiated it to begin with."

"And no doubt I'm an unknown variable with my brand of magic being so different from everything else here," she commented. "So who knows whether the results would be the same each time even if we did use the same spells?"

Juste shrugged as he walked toward the door of the sanctuary. "It is possible that we could get a different effect than before, though our magics being so different could explain the explosive reaction of the first crush. The good news is that, even when we get unexpected results, it's always possible to figure out why, so you can cast it reliably in the future."

"Hm, all right," she responded contemplatively as she followed him.

"It's really not something to practice here," he continued as he walked back out into the corridor and continued back towards Legion's room, "because conserving magic in this place can save your life if you get cornered, but in this instance I think we should try to do so anyway, so we at least know something of what we're capable of. Something or someone other than Dracula resurrected the castle early, so it never hurts to be prepared."

"True, and better that we have an idea of what will happen when our magic combines rather than relying on it later and it fails in some way." They returned to the large room that was no longer covered in ice, and Aqua glanced around. "So are we looking for something specific here?"

Juste swept his eyes around the room, and he spotted something glittering in the center of the floor. "The Elite on occasion drop things," he explained as he walked to it and picked it up. "And it looks like Legion was kind enough to leave us something for all of our trouble." He realized right away what it was; Leon and Hector had both left notes and drawings describing the dragon crest that could be used to open doors.

He showed it to Aqua when she stepped closer to look. "This appears to be the bottom right corner of the key we need to open the sealed door that leads to the courtyard. I have a feeling that every Elite we encounter from here on will drop a piece."

"So you're saying we'll have to face at least three other elite creatures before we get to the 'boss', so to speak?" she asked, annoyance coloring her tone. She really wished they could just get to the bottom of things quickly. Shame it never seemed to be that easy.

Juste gave her a sideways look. "Oh no, more than that. This piece here is tiny, so we're likely looking at five more, one for each area of the castle, not counting the entrance and Dracula's throne room."

She stared at the crest for a moment before sighing. "I'm really starting to hate this place."

"You're not the only one, Miss Aqua, and it will make it all the more satisfying when it crumbles to the ground once again. Now let's go; we have a lot more ground to cover." He stuffed the crest piece in one of his pockets and turned to the door opposite to the one they had come in. He heard her grumbling to herself as they walked through the door, into another short featureless hallway, and once he reached the door at the other end, he paused and wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Oh dear," she said, catching the look on his face. "And what have we here?"

"Do you smell that?" he asked as he turned his head to look at her. "That chemical smell, mixed in with the scent of decaying bodies?"

Immediately after his response, she caught the scent he was talking about, and it made her cough as the residual chemicals singed the back of her throat. "Ugh, tell me that's not a lab up ahead. I can't imagine what this place would change a lab into."

"I know we've touched upon alchemy a bit the other day when I was telling you about the Crimson Stone, but how much do you know about it, Miss Aqua?"

"I know a bit, but more in the vague sort of sense. It's not something I've ever attempted myself. The whole change-lead-into-gold thing has never really interested me. I don't need to change something into something else; the base nature of things is plenty for me to work with."

"Mathias Cronqvist was an alchemist in life, as his creation of the Crimson Stone shows, despite many considering it to be blasphemous. The ultimate goal of alchemy is the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, which would give its user eternal life and allow them to turn normal metals to gold. It was during an attempt to create the Philosopher's stone that the Ebony Stone once possessed by Walter Bernhard was also created. Despite becoming a vampire, Dracula has continued his pursuit of alchemy, though no one is quite sure why. Some say he is hoping to bring his wives back from the dead somehow, while others insist that he's doing to it insult God. Personally, I believe it's simply the machinations of a man who has long ago lost his mind.

"Judging by the smell, I would say his alchemy lab is on the other side of the door. The good news is that the monsters roaming free through the area are pretty standard and rarely change from castle to castle. Just keep an eye out for things that seem out of place; who knows what's being created in here."

She stated sardonically, "I'm not sure I'm the best judge of what's out of place, since I myself am an anomaly to this world. You know it best, you're more likely to know what is unusual here."

Juste pushed open the door and peeked his head in. A dim red light fell across his face, and he looked across the room in front of them, with its grimy tile floor and walls. Tables with bottles, tubes, vials and other instruments of so called science littered the room, and large glass jars filled with strange creatures that he really didn't want to know about lined the walls. There were no monsters though, so he cautiously stepped inside and waited until Aqua joined him.

"You know, I really should've thought of this earlier, but you all really call this place 'Castlevania'? Is there not a better name for it? It just seems kind of, I don't know, lame, for lack of a better word," Aqua criticized mildly as she trailed slightly behind Juste.

Juste shook his head slightly. "It was my great-great-great-great grandfather, Christopher that named it Castlevania, and no one, not even his son Soleiyu, knew where he got the name from. No one had a better name, so it stuck."

"Soleiyu? Now that's a unique name." she replied.

"Christopher didn't know French as well as he thought he did. I'm glad my parents knew it better, or who knows what my name could have ended up like."

"Oh, was he aiming for Soleil? I see. What does your name mean in French?" Languages were yet another thing that Aqua was most interested in, despite not really needing to learn them due to the traveler's effects.

He smiled at her as he walked over to the doorway to the next room. "It means 'righteousness'. My parents wanted to give me a name with meaning apparently."

"Ah, I see," she said with a smile of her own. She wrinkled her nose as they opened the next door. "I will never get accustomed to the smell of laboratories. Especially when they're mixed with the extraneous scent of death."

"Encountered them before then?" Juste asked as he spotted their first monster – a green ax armor. "See that thing there?" he said as he nodded at it. "They fling their axes at you once you get close enough. The axes spin as they come towards you and then they reverse direction and return to the one that threw them. They can throw them along the floor or about head level, but the axes always travel in a straight line. They can also fling them overhand in an arc, and they also will brandish an ax like a sword and charge at you."

"Yeah, they have one in one of the major worlds I spend time in, Radiant Garden." She tilted her head at Juste's explanation of this new enemy. "In other words, block the axes or move to the side as long as you don't move back into the same spot or it'll hit you on its return. I don't really see what's unusual about that," she responded, unsure why the lesson was needed.

"You say that now, but wait until you're dodging multiple axes at once. They throw them quite frequently, so it's best to take them down from afar if you can." He walked forward, calling up his magic as he went, and then he saw that the lone ax armor wasn't lone after all. "Did I mention," he added as he eyed the four that were lined up in the corridor, "that they have the tendency to spawn in groups?"

She surveyed the enemies before them. "Well it's a good thing magic is my specialty, isn't it?" Aqua summoned Stormfall and fired off several low-level fire spells, seeing how the enemies' health held up as Juste really hadn't said anything about how tough they were, just how they attacked.

He smirked as her magic landed on the ax armors. "Indeed." He summoned Magic Missile and sent it toward the one in the front of the row. The ax armor collapsed to the ground in pieces, but the spell still had more power, so it went on to attack the second one.

Aqua followed up her fire with a few well-aimed Blizzard spells, which went through multiple targets regardless whether the first enemy was destroyed or not. This inevitably made her the ax armors focus on her as their main threat, but she was unworried. As they started towards her to get in range to hit her with their ax throws, she threw up a barrier that the axes simply bounced off of, then jumped back out of range, casting Thundaga as she did so. The armors were momentarily stunned as the electricity was conducted through the metal, and the remaining enemies collapsed as the spell ended.

"You can come visit this castle with me any time you want, Miss Aqua." Juste said with a grin as they walked into the next room, but that grin quickly vanished from his face when he saw what was shambling across the floor. "Red Skeletons," he grumbled. "Why does it always have to be Red Skeletons?"

Rather than waiting for an explanation, Aqua chose to simply attack the new enemy and find out for herself what Juste disliked about these so much. She sent a heavy ice block at the nearest one. The sheer force of the blow caused the creature's bones to dissemble into a scattered pile on the floor. But right before her eyes, she saw the bones pull together and it reassembled itself on its own. "What? Wha-how does it do that?"

"No one quite knows. Not even the Vampire Killer can destroy them permanently. Only Hector was able to destroy them for good, and even he required a specific Innocent Devil that had learned a purification spell."

"Purification? So shouldn't light or holy spells work as easily?" she asked, eyeing the shambling enemies as they came slowly closer. She decided that questions about what the innocent devil thing was could wait till their situation was resolved.

"Not even my holy spells work against them. They knock them down easily enough, but they can't keep them down. They are the only enemy that the Vampire Killer cannot destroy, so perhaps they are using a portion of Dracula's power to reanimate themselves?"

Aqua hummed thoughtfully, an idea forming. She dashed at the approaching enemy, and foregoing any spell, she simply slammed her blade into it. Her weapon glowed very slightly as it connected with the skeleton, and the creature fell apart, the bones scattering once again. But this time, it didn't reform. "I thought so!" she exclaimed as she leapt back from the other oncoming enemies. At Juste's shocked expression, she quickly explained, "My keyblade releases the hearts from Heartless, completely destroying them when other weapons can only disperse them temporarily. I thought it might be the same here. It looks like it works about the same way, so I was right. Hm, I wonder..." she cocked her head briefly before jumping into the middle of several skeletons. If it didn't work, at least it would knock them back, so she wouldn't be hurt by her experiment. She called out, "Faith!" and a pillar of light shot up around her, blasting back all enemies within a certain radial distance. The skeletons crumbled immediately, and did not reassemble.

Juste felt his jaw hanging open, and he heard his mental voice (which sounded a great deal like his mother) admonish him about catching flies, but he quickly shook his head. "You need to tell me where you live." he said, and she turned to look at him on puzzlement. "So if we encounter these again, we can invite you to come along and destroy them for us. We've been thinking for years that we would either have to find another Devil Forgemaster like Hector that was willing to work against Dracula, or find a man of the cloth with combat experience. No one since Dracula's 1479 resurrection has been able to destroy those." He gave her a slow clap. "Very nice, Miss Aqua. Very nice indeed."

She was stunned that something that came so easily for her was so difficult for anyone else here. She gave an embarrassed laugh. "Maybe I could teach you the spell, if your magic will accept it. That would give you a weapon of your own to use against them."

His face lit up. "I would like that very much. It would certainly be easier than trying to track down another Devil Forgemaster."

"Faith is a light spell I learned from Queen Minnie not too long ago. It's not -that- powerful, but it has its uses. So what's a Devil Forgemaster?" she questioned, quickly switching subjects to something she didn't know yet.

He explained as they continued on across the room and down a staircase lit with torches every ten steps or so. "Devil Forgemasters are very rare – only a handful have been known to exist in all of recorded history. It's a branch of Necromancy, and it cannot be learned; once must be born with the talent. A Devil Forgemaster can create creatures called Innocent Devils and use those Devils in combat to fight for them. There are many different types; they are limited only by the imagination of their creator. Only the Forgemasters themselves know the exact process, but the short of it is that the Forgemaster creates a sculpture of the Devil he wishes to create, and then he calls on the powers of Darkness to release to him a soul that has been damned. That soul is then called into this world by the Forgemaster and placed into the sculpture. The addition of the soul, plus a surge of the Forgemaster's own magic brings it to life." Juste paused as they reached the bottom on the stairs, and he summoned a wall of water to destroy the skeletons that cluttered the hallway in front of them. "Hector, the one who defeated Dracula in 1479, was one of only two Devil Forgemasters known in the past 1000 years. He used to work for Dracula, in fact from the hints he dropped to Trevor, Dracula practically raised him. After Dracula began his war on humanity after the murder of his second wife, Hector couldn't bear all of the killing, so he defected."

"I see...If these Forgemasters are so rare, how does anyone really know anything about them? And as for their creations, why are they called 'Innocent' Devils if they bear a damned soul? I should think 'damned' would make the adjective an oxymoron. Are their past sins forgiven if they carry out what they were created to do?" Aqua questioned, picking out the main things from his explanation that caught her attention for the moment.

They walked into the next room, and Juste made note of the large amount of equipment and tables covered with various tools that scattered about the large, square space. The place was clear of monsters though, so he went to answer Aqua's question.  
"Devil Forgemasters have been appearing in history for -"  
Ahead and to his right came the sound of wood against stone, and Sara crackled in warning just as he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

"Look out!" he shouted as he leapt back and threw his arm out to stop Aqua just as a heavy wooden table somehow flung itself across the room at them. He felt the breeze it generated as it passed mere inches in front of him as Aqua yelped in surprise, and it crashed to the floor opposite of where it had been.

"A poltergeist!" he gasped as he uncoiled the whip, and... Was the table somehow getting back up? It shouldn't... How...? What was going on here!

Aqua caught a glimpse of black and a yellow face appear briefly on the table as it bent its legs to launch at them again. "Not a poltergeist. Heartless!" She and Juste leapt out of the way again as a chair shook itself into motion a little further away. "Possessors, little black orb-like creatures that can enter anything and control it. You have to knock them out of the object they're in to do any real damage to them."

Every object in the room began to shake and move as Juste stared in horrified fascination at it all. "How do we do that?"

"Usually I just hit them with my keyblade a few times, that usually works. I'm not sure with you." Several scalpels then flew through the air, aiming straight for them. Aqua threw up her shield with Juste behind her and they all pinged against it before falling to the floor as if dazed.

"Let's see how effective magic is then." Juste jumped back a couple more feet and castle Holy Lightning. The magic crackled over the stunned blades, as well as the now damaged table that was still trying to right itself .The table collapsed, and a black orb with yellow eyes and a red squiggle for a mouth rose up out of it.

"Oh good," Aqua remarked, and then sent her own Thunder spell arcing across the scalpels, releasing a single Possessor that had claimed the lot of them. She then smacked it with her keyblade, two hard strikes, and the Possessor died in a swirl of shadow. A chair tumbled through the air towards them, and Aqua swung her blade into it to knock it off course and send it careening into the wall. The force expelled a third Heartless into the air.

A quick swing of the Vampire Killer destroyed the Possessor that had risen from the table, just as a stand burner of some kind came flying through the air at him, firing a bright, blue flame at him as it closed in. He stepped aside and cast Hail Crystal. Chunks of ice appeared and encased the burner, snuffing its flame and making it drop to the floor. Another crack of the whip prompted the Heartless to appear, and yet another swing quickly ended it.  
"These things do not appear to have much health." he commented.

"No, they're very weak on their own, that's why they have to possess objects to protect them and deal damage. If you were to get hit by one of them as they are, it wouldn't even be as strong as a punch." Aqua allowed the one she released from the chair to hit her, and she barely swayed from its force. "See? Not at all effective on their own." She quickly dispersed the Heartless, then ducked as a candelabrum swooped by. It stopped after it had passed and used its flames to shoot fire at her, which she blocked with her shield, and the flares reflected back at it, sending it tumbling through the air.

A wooden cabinet with a myriad small drawers shuddered and shook, and all of those drawers opened at once and began spewing paper at them. Despite the still air, the paper flew about the space as though it had wings, greatly obstructing their view of things around them. He stepped away from Aqua not daring to cast fire magic so close to her with so much paper in the air, and cast Firestorm. The fire whirl appeared in the center of the room, incinerating the paper that got too close to it, but the spell was interrupted when the drawers that the paper had come from began to launch themselves across the room at him, one by one. The thin wood shattered against the wall behind him, and he tried to edge closer to the cabinet.

Aqua decided the visibility problem was annoying, so she cast a large Gravity over the room, clearing the rest of the paper from the air (as well as a few medical instruments that had just entered the fight). Now that they could see with the majority of flying objects temporarily stuck to the floor, she assessed the remaining Possessors while Juste took down the cabinet.

Several small objects: a writing quill, another scalpel, a saw, glass tubes, and a few other things the he wasn't able to identify flew off the top of the cabinet at him, forcing him to dodge and duck as he closed the distance. Behind him he heard Aqua spellcasting, followed by the sound of multiple things slapping against the floor, and he smiled at the sound as he finally got in range of the cabinet. A Flame Trap spell caused a whirling pinwheel of flame to appear in front of him, and it spun across the floor towards his target. It touched the old wood and quickly grew in size until he could no longer see the cabinet at all. The Possessor then appeared briefly above it, before the spell quickly devoured it too.

Aqua managed to identify Possessors in the medical tools, a mortar and pestle set, and another chair before her spell wore off. With the cabinet Possessor gone, the paper remained on the floor, making a dangerously slippery footing. She eliminated that problem by setting fire to it, hopping over the ring of flame as it quickly ate up the stock across the stone floor. Then the medical tools flew at her, and she cast Aero around herself to prevent them from reaching her. She then batted them aside with her blade, expelling the Heartless, which she quickly destroyed. Then she took on the pestle as it attempted to bludgeon her (rather ineffectively, it had to be said), blasting it aside. The ceramic set crashed into a counter set into the wall, shattering. The Possessor was forced to emerge, but before she could catch it, it flew across the room and inhabited a large tube along the wall.

The loud cracking of glass was the only warning he received. Juste turned towards the sound just in time for the glass front of a ceiling high tube to fracture, allowing a spray of liquid to erupt in his direction. The high pressure jet hit him square in the chest, flinging him back a few feet and knocking him to the floor. The double impact punched the air out of his lungs, and he gasped as he scuttled away from the foul smelling fluid as it continued to gush out.

 _Thank the stars,_ Aqua was not the only one to deal with this crap. She leapt to the rescue, however, freezing the spew with a spell. She could see the Possessor shift to devote its energy to resuming the flow, but it was having quite the difficult time of it, given that whatever that stuff was, it had a lower freezing temperature than water, meaning the fluid was frozen more solid than even Aqua's own basic ice spell. She took the opportunity to beat on the tube until the Possessor was forced to leave it when she cracked the glass in another location. She quickly dispersed it with Fire.

Juste staggered to his feet, sucking in great lungfuls of air as streams of whatever liquid that had been ran down from his clothes. Oh Lord, the _smell._ Perhaps he could bathe in the next sanctuary they found...

Before he could complete that thought, something hit the back of his knees, making his legs fold in under him. He fell, but instead of hitting the floor, he found himself landing in a chair, a chair that was scuttling at a great rate of speed across the room. He heard Aqua chuckle somewhere behind him just before the chair stopped abruptly, which launched him out of it. He managed to land on his feet though, and he spun around a put a bit too much power into a Salamander spell. The intense heat destroyed the chair almost instantly, and a single whip swing destroyed the Possessor as soon as it emerged.

"I would say that was a bit of an overreaction, but then again, you've pretty much earned it after that," Aqua remarked, nodding at his painfully wet and smelly clothes. "Should we douse you in regular water and I can dry you off? Who knows how far the next place we could wash off is from here."

"Yes," Juste grumbled as he shivered, "that would be greatly appreciated."

She nodded sympathetically and conjured a large ice block over his head, which she then promptly melted, drenching him with cold, but clean, water.

He knew it was coming, but he still couldn't contain the yelp at the cold water as it poured down over him. He shivered again and nodded at Aqua to proceed to the next step. The warmth of her magic wrapped around him then, drying him as best as it could. He could still feel the slimy gunk in his clothing and hair, but it would do until they found a sanctuary.

"Sorry," she grimaced. "Takes a lot more energy to heat the ice. But it's better now, right? I'm sure you can wash up properly later."

"It's better than before, so thank you. I'll manage until we find a sanctuary." he said as he tried to ignore the feeling of his hair sticking to itself and him. "For now, I just want to get out of this room."

"No kidding." She dismissed her keyblade and made for the door to move on to the next hall. "So...you were saying? About the Forgemasters and Devils?"

Now it was his turn to grimace as his boots made a squelching sound with every step he took. "Oh yes, where was I?"

She reminded him of what her questions were, and he launched into a detailed explanation.

"Devil Forgemasters have been appearing in history for thousands of years, and while the power itself is inherently dark, the Forgemasters themselves are not. They must choose to walk the evil path. Some previous ones wrote what they knew down, and the rest we know because Hector befriended Trevor after Dracula's 1479 defeat. Trevor had been seriously injured by Isaac, the second Devil Forgemaster, so he had little to do but talk during his recovery, so he asked as much as he could in case we ever encountered them again.

"The reason they are called 'Innocent Devils" is because in some ways they are. They live only for their master, and will do whatever he tells them, for good or for ill. Hector likened them to young children. A child will steal when told to by a parent, the whole time being unaware that what they're doing is wrong.

"As for your last question, no one knows; not even the Forgemasters themselves. Hector said as long as they weren't killed in battle without being resurrected, then his Innocent Devils would live as long as he did. What happens to them once they pass on?" Juste shrugged. "As I said, no one knows."

"Hm," Aqua hummed thoughtfully. "Perhaps they're a little like the Dream Eaters Sora and Riku interacted with. There were Spirits, which were helpful to the light, and Nightmares, which would attack the light. The Dream Eaters could be created by the dreamers, and so I imagine if someone with a dark alignment had done the same, they would be Nightmares instead of Spirits. So I think they may be similar to the Innocent Devils in that it's their creator that determines what they are and what they do. And we don't really know what happens to them when they are destroyed either, not to mention what they truly are to begin with. They're the substance of dreams, after all. Who really knows what they're made of?"

Juste cracked the Vampire Killer against a Spittle Bone that was moving across the ceiling over their head. "Watch for those. They're just skeletonized birds, but they can breathe fire as well as any dragon you may have heard of." He frowned thoughtfully at her explanation of Nightmares and Spirits. "Those do indeed sound like Innocent Devils. Trevor wrote that Hector could create them out of a mere wisp of conjured matter, but that was tiring, so he preferred not to do it." He turned his head to the left to look at her as they descended another set of steps. "He also said that Hector was capable of doing joint attacks with his Devils and that they could learn new skills over time. Can the Spirits do that?"

"Joint attacks, definitely, with their owners and each other at times. I'm not certain about new skills, but I do know that they get stronger as their creators do. I don't know quite as much about them as I would like; I've never been approved for a Dream Dive, so I can't find out for myself. Everything I know is secondhand, and while Riku is the more reliable witness of the two, he still doesn't have quite enough patience to handle all my questions," she commented wryly. Few people had that much patience.

Another skeletal bird swooped down at them, but Aqua fired a Blizzard spell at it before it has the chance to burn anything.

"Approved for a Dream Dive? Why do you have to be approved?" They reached the bottom of the steps, which opened up into a long corridor. There were none of the tubes and other equipment that littered the rest of the lab, but there was a sanctuary in the middle of the left wall. Far head at the end of the corridor was a set of double doors that no doubt had an Elite behind it.

"Well, we had some difficulties with the last Dream Drop that was done with Riku and Sora. They were marked and attacked by enemies who took advantage of their dreaming to eventually put Sora into so deep a dream that he could never awaken, and they would use him for their own nefarious purposes. Riku prevented that from happening in the end, but it still showed us a large weak spot in the Dreaming. As a Keyblade Master, I have a fair bit of authority, but even I can't overrule Master Yen Sid and King Mickey's decision to disallow any Dives, even though as far as we're aware, our enemies have been permanently dealt with. It's a safety precaution, I suppose, but I'd still like to visit the Sleeping Worlds." Aqua directed her attention toward the door ahead. "I imagine that leads to another tough battle?"

"Likely – the Elite are always close to sanctuaries. I think we can agree that we could use a rest after that mess back there." He waved his hand in the direction they had come from.

"Probably a good idea," she concurred. "We don't need to stay too long, in any case. We'll probably need it more after the battle. I do hope this one goes easier than the last," she added sardonically.

"I suppose it would depend on what's in here." Juste said as he pushed through the sanctuary door. "The last time I was in this castle, the Elite was a large blob born from a cauldron in the middle of the floor. It liked to hang off the ceiling and try to crush me by falling on my head." He touched the statue and felt his magic refill. "I sincerely hope we don't encounter one of those again."

"I can see how physical attacks would be useless, but wouldn't magic be effective? And I would think a large creature falling from above would be easy enough to dodge as it shouldn't be able to change direction as it drops," Aqua pointed out logically. She also touched the statue and felt any fatigue fade.

"I got through the battle without taking any damage from it, but it was a large creature in a small room, and it moved surprisingly quick. I couldn't use any magic, because while I was spellcasting, it would close in on me, giving me no room to maneuver once the spell was over." He turned and looked at her. "I need to bathe and wash my clothing as best as I can, but I should probably wait until after we've dealt with the upcoming Elite. Since it's the battle for the lab area, it will likely be nasty. Are you ready?"

She nodded and they departed the sanctuary and crossed through to the entrance to the next room. They beheld a most strange sight as they entered; at first, Aqua wondered what this boss was supposed to be. But as she and Juste cautiously continued their approach, she began to make out what exactly they were to face.

"Wonderful," Juste muttered to himself as he laid eyes on what was waiting for them.

Two large tanks stood in front of them, with each containing a person, or rather, what passed for a person. The tank on the right held a male figure, dressed in coat very much like his own, though the red was much darker, reminding him of old, dead blood. The long white hair was ratted and tangled, and the face was pinched in an angry expression. The body was withered and emaciated, but he had no doubt that such poor physical condition wouldn't slow it at all. Hanging from its belt, within easy reach of the left hand, was a mockery of the Vampire Killer. Sara crackled in anger as they stepped into the room, and he paused as Aqua gasped.

The tank on the left contained a young woman that could nearly pass for Aqua's twin, if not for a few great differences. Her clothes were lighter shades than Aqua's, and the layered hair that Aqua favored was choppier, slightly shorter, and a deeper blue than hers. She wore a scowl that Aqua could honestly claim had crossed own face less than five times in her life. This body, too, was in poor physical condition, but what truly caught Aqua's attention was the keyblade held loosely in the doppelganger's hand. It was a dark version of her own Stormfall. The edges were sharper and hooked, while the blue and steel gray had been darkened to midnight blue and black.

"Doppelgangers," Juste said as the creatures' eyes opened and fixed upon then. "Copies made of us using a mix of alchemy and magic. Leon encountered two of him inside Walter's castle. They will use the same attacks that we do, and they will move very fast." His own doppelganger sneered at him and pushed forward against the glass of the tank. "Any attack works, but they will know how to counter you, so beware of that." The white haired creature hit the tank, which caused it to crack. "Get ready; here they come!"

The copy of him slammed into the glass with its entire weight, and the front of the tank shattered under the force of the blow. Glass shards and the same foul smelling liquid that Juste had been sprayed with earlier poured out onto the floor, and his copy leapt out at him. He dodged to the right, and he was aware of the sound of the second tank shattering as it sneered at him again. Its mouth was lined with razor sharp teeth, teeth that no human possessed.

Juste unhooked the Vampire Killer from his belt and sent it whipping towards his target, but the copy dodged out of the way and uncoiled its own weapon. Juste backflipped to get away as the mockery cracked the floor where he had been standing, sending chips of the tile flying up into the air.

Aqua's double used the sharp edges of its keyblade to carve a large X in the glass, which it then kicked the center of hard enough that the weakened glass exploded outward. Aqua quickly pulled up a shield to deflect the shards. The doppelganger slipped through the opening, not noticing when its shoulder caught on one of the broken edges, and the resulting cut soon filled with a liquid too thick to be true blood, though it was as red as any human's.

The double's eyes caught Aqua's own, and she shivered unconsciously; the strange golden shade was too similar to those of her past foes.

The copy growled suddenly, its scowl morphing into a feral grin as it leapt at Aqua, its keyblade suddenly flaming as it slashed at her. It was faster than she'd anticipated, and it caught her off-guard. She barely had enough time to jump back out of range. The copy easily compensated, as it immediately fired a block of ice at her. Aqua sidestepped quickly and realized that if magic was her most powerful attribute, she could not easily face her "evil twin" in an extended magic battle. She slide-dashed in close, whipping her keyblade around to slice at the copy's side.

Her swing was met by her double's own dark blade, and as they both had equal strength, they both leapt away in tandem as there was no possibility of their battle progressing otherwise. Aqua slid back in close to the ground as she ducked beneath the blade directed towards her head. She slashed at the copy's legs. It tried to jump as it realized what her aim was at the last moment, but it was a fraction of a second too late, and Aqua's keyblade sliced through its clothes by its ankle, cutting deep. The double leapt away once again, resting most of its weight on the unharmed leg. Aqua's face took on a slightly triumphant expression, as it put her at an advantage. It also proved that her copy's clothing were just an imitation and didn't carry the level of protection that hers did.

Juste swung his whip as his copy streaked forward at him, and he was rewarded with an inhuman shriek as the Vampire Killer made contact. Instead of going up in flames like he had hoped, the wound on the creature's shoulder merely smoked as a thick red ichor oozed from it. Still the attack did not slow it down, and Juste rolled to his right again, just it flung a glass bottle to the floor. Dark flames erupted and raced across the tiles towards him in a corrupted version of his holy water attacks. He backed up as the flames chased after him, and when they finally died down, the copy was already running at him again. He pulled his cross off of its chain around his neck and flung it. The creature snarled as the holy item made contact, but it only staggered for a second. That second though was all he needed as he lashed out with the Vampire Killer again, and this time, he caught it on the chest. It screeched and stumbled back, but as he moved in for the kill, it attacked with its own whip, and Juste yelped as the dark whip laid open his left upper arm. The wound burned from the cold, and he jumped backwards to get some breathing room as the cold raced down his arm to his fingers.

Juste's yelp distracted Aqua for a split second, and when she quickly redirected her attention, she found a fireball coursing straight for her. She hurriedly threw up a shield, but not quite fast enough to block the attack. She managed to turn aside and throw up a hand to protect her face at the last second to avoid taking the blow head on, but she screamed as the dark fire seared her arm. Thankfully, her clothes protected her from the worst of it, but this was the same arm whose sleeve had been damaged earlier, and the fire had well burned her unprotected skin. Dry sobbing as the pain continued to shock through her, she managed to cast a high level Stopga on the doppelganger, forcing its time to pause while she tended to the burn.

After quaffing a potion, Juste decided that the best defense was a good offense, He called up his magic and started throwing spell after spell at the copy, forcing it to back up and making it stagger. With breathing room cleared, he called his magic again and cast Hydro Storm. The copy stood there for a moment, and then it began to writhe and scream as the water rained down on it, burning holes in its clothing and leaving smoking holes in its pasty skin. It screamed as it tried to brush the burning water off and stumbled back away from him. He ran forward, swinging the Vampire Killer as the spell ended, but too late he saw the glow around it.

The copy rose off the floor as a column of dark light appeared around it. Before Juste could react, he felt the burning cold of a corrupted version of Grand Cross attacking him. He screamed in pain as the dark power began to tear and burn at him, and he stumbled away from the upside down crosses (Were they formed from _bone?_ he wondered as he stumbled back.) and dropped to the floor. He gasped for air as he pulled a holy water from his pocket and threw it on the floor around him and willed it to chase his attacker away while he dealt with the injuries from the attacks. Calling again on his rapidly depleting magic reserves, he cast his own healing spell, and he sighed in relief as his body healed from the beating it had just taken.

He was then forced to jump to his feet and back away as the holy water stopped, and the copy charged at him again. He quickly fished out a Mana Prism to refill his magic, and then dodged the copy's whip strike and retaliated with one of his own.

With the copy temporarily Stopped, Aqua called up a large dose of magic and cast Curaga on herself, soothing her frazzled nerves and slowly healing the burns on her arm. Due to its prior damage coupled with strong magic, her left sleeve was completely destroyed. Only the band with her armor gem remained (and thank any deities for that). She still bore light scarring from the burns, but she could take the time to heal them more fully later. She sighed in relief before jumping back into action just as her spell wore off on her double.

Before it had time to react, Aqua sent a flurry of high powered spells at it. The copy was sent flying from a heavy ice spell that collided dead on with it, and the following flame spell caught it on an arm that it had flung up in protection the same way Aqua had. It did manage to throw a barrier up as Aqua briefly paused as she cast a thunder spell, so Aqua stopped her spellcasting and dashed for her double. Just as it lashed out with an ice chunk of its own, Aqua Teleported directly behind the creature and brutally slashed it with Stormfall. It screeched, a long line of red ichor sprouting along its back. Aqua gave it no time to recover as she sliced at it again and again. It frantically tried to match her blows, and succeeded until it put too much pressure on its weakened ankle. It crumpled and attempted to roll, all the while causing the injury on its back to worsen from the strain.

Juste nearly cheered as the Vampire Killer struck the copy directly in the face. It howled as its papery skin burned and peeled off, and it batted at its face to try and smother the flames. Seizing the opportunity, he streaked forward at it and cracked his whip again as it flailed about. The tip of the Vampire Killer connected solidly against its right shoulder, and with a small eruption of gore, its arm fell off and dropped to the floor, where it laid on the tiles, twitching. A quick burst of fire magic incinerated it, and he pulled out one of his silver daggers and threw it. The weapon imbedded itself in the back of its left hand, and it was forced to drop its whip as the dagger severed the tendons in its fingers. Another quick burst of fire destroyed the mockery of the Vampire Killer, leaving it with only magic.

It snarled and glared at him with one eye – the other was melted from the fire – and it cast its own version of Holy Lightning. Juste dodged the dark beams of electricity as they made his hair stand up on end, and he pulled out another dagger and plunged it into the creature's heart as it ran forward to attack him. It screeched and howled as the silver blade burned the skin around the stab wound, and he shoved it in as far as he could go as it began to stumble. He then jumped back a few steps and cast Hydro Storm again. The creature tried to scream, but blood burst from its mouth as its skin melted and peeled under the magical attack. Smoke rose from the wound in its chest, and as it collapsed to the floor, Juste lashed out with the Vampire Killer one last time, catching it solidly in the head.

Finally, the combined force of the silver, the magic, and the whip was enough to destroy whatever kept the thing animated, and it collapsed lifeless to the tile floor and went up in a purifying fire. Still not taking any chances, Juste did the same as he had done with the Elite in the Entrance Hall and summoned down lightning to destroy the corpse.

Aqua followed her copy as it tried to roll away, and cried, "Faith!" as she neared it. The pillar of light, cast almost directly on top of the creature, blasted it back, and its landing was far from graceful. It lay stunned, its clothing smoking slightly from the light damage. Aqua quickly ran up to it before it could recover, and cast a powerful Firaga directly at the copy. It shrieked in pain and anger as its skin blistered and cracked as the full power of the spell impacted its body. As the spell faded, its glare was filled with rage, the golden eyes practically screaming murder at Aqua. It summoned its remaining strength to slash at Aqua from the ground, but she batted the weak swing aside easily, and the dark keyblade dropped from its grip, spiralling aside before vanishing into shadow. Aqua finally stabbed the creature before her through the chest, a grating sound from beneath the body informing her that she had plunged the keyblade all the way through the stone below. It gasped before it sighed and lit up in white flames that consumed it to dust.

As soon as the danger passed, Aqua's legs gave out and she dropped ungracefully to the floor, leaving her keyblade where it stood. She had used up more of her magic on this doppelganger and healing than usual. She managed to yank an Ether out of her pocket and downed it, feeling her magic restore to a safe level gratefully.

Juste leaned over, hands on his knees, catching his breath. When he looked up, he saw a glint of something among the ashes that was all that remained on his copy. He walked over and picked it up, and he wasn't surprised when he saw it was another piece of the dragon crest.

He looked around for Aqua and spotted her sitting on the floor on the opposite side of the room, looking as exhausted as he felt. "Miss Aqua," he called, and she looked up at him, "check where yours fell. Mine dropped part of the crest that we need."

She refocused her eyes on what was before her. A fragment of the crest lay just beside her keyblade still buried slightly in the floor. She dismissed Stormfall and held up the piece so Juste could see it. She pushed herself back up and plodded towards him. "Sanctuary. Now, please," was about the most she could manage at the moment.

He took the piece from her trembling hand. "I agree wholeheartedly. Let us go." He stuffed the piece into a pocket, and followed her out of the room. They wandered tiredly back to the sanctuary they had left earlier, and he realized his arms were shaking as he opened the blue glowing doors. The statue of Raphael was waiting for them, and he sighed as the peace of the room washed over him. He reached out and touched the statue, and once his magic had recovered, he flopped down bonelessly to the grass and pulled another meal pack out of his pocket. He canceled the spells and handed it to Aqua as she stepped up to the statue. He then took a second pack and took a second to check his pocket watch. He raised an eyebrow when he saw that it had been almost four hours since they had eaten last in the chapel sanctuary.

She tiredly raised her arm to touch the statue's hand and felt the power rush back into her, before she managed to take the proffered meal pack and drop to the ground right where she stood. She leaned back against the angel as she heated the food with a minor use of magic. The battle had seriously exhausted her, and she scarfed the food down before she shifted to the side so she could lay down and sleep. She needed to recover from her physical fatigue and the residual effects of burning so much magic before she could finish healing the wounds on her arm. Aqua didn't even bother saying a word; she just dropped off to sleep as soon as she had settled on the grass.

Juste quickly made short work of his own meal, and he drank down a bottle of water. Burning the trash, and stuffing the empty bottle back into a pocket, he laid back on the grass and pillowed his head on his arms. He closed his eyes, and soon he too was asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** So a reviewer did point out something – Aqua made no attempt to open the locked door to the courtyard with her keyblade. That has been rectified, and can be found in Chapter 5. I also realized that I had forgotten to add a small detail (Juste spots what he thinks is an inaccessible warp room) to that same chapter, and that has also been rectified. And to answer your question, belzd, the time stop was a small area of effect and so didn't reach Juste and his doppelganger.

 **And here's an A/N from Lita_Snow:** Also, that part here where Juste doesn't realize Japanese exists? That's because in his world, it doesn't. If you'll recall back at the very beginning, when Aqua flew to the world she saw the area of Juste's town and a crumbled Castlevania on the opposite side. Then when she was shown a map later in Maxim's tavern, she was astounded at the size. For anyone who has seen the beginning of KH Union [Cross], you know that there used to be just one world, basically our world, which included Daybreak Town, but due to the Keyblade War, it was shattered into hundreds of fragmented worlds. This is why none of the worlds in the games are very big, because each world is just a piece of a whole. But for our purposes, Juste's world of Castlevania is gigantic, though it is not our entire world itself or Aqua would have seen a very different world when she arrived. Instead, Juste's world is just a good portion of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Western Europe, Asia, most of Africa and so on are no longer a part of this world for our story. For a Kingdom Hearts Universe, the world Castlevania takes place is in only a small part of the whole.

 **7.**

Juste woke up slowly. The feel of the castle around him was the first thing to come to him, followed by the sound of the stream, and Aqua's quiet breathing. A moment later, the smell of his clothing and body hit him hard, and he bolted upright, nearly gagging at the horrible stench. He didn't know what kind of fluid that had been that had sprayed him earlier had been, and truthfully, he didn't want to. All he wanted was to get rid of the smell, which had seemingly worsened while he'd been asleep.

A quick glance at Aqua showed that was still asleep. It was very inappropriate for him to be bathing in the same room as a sleeping woman that was most certainly not his wife, but inside Castlevania, certain things just had to be done.

He quietly climbed to his feet, grimacing at how stiff and grimy his clothes felt, and stepped around the planter box to the stream on the right side of the room. He ducked down behind the trellis that stood behind it, and used the cover of the leafy plants to strip down before carefully stepping down into the water. He had to swallow a yelp as he went; it was frigid, and goosebumps broke out all over his skin as he lowered himself in. His teeth began to chatter as he hastily washed himself and his hair as best as he could, before doing the same with this clothing.

The stream's current washed the slime downstream, taking the stench with it, and he sighed in relief as he wrung his clothes out and draped them over the trellis before stepping out. He wrung his hair out, and finger combed it as best he could before getting dressed. Hopefully, Aqua wouldn't be adverse to drying him out again once she was awake.

Eventually, Aqua too woke after what must have been several hours. She didn't notice Juste anywhere, but she wasn't worried. He wouldn't have gone far on his own. She rolled to her feet slowly before stretching out her muscles. Another nice thing about these sanctuaries was that they soothed sore muscles, so the stretch was more habitual than necessary. She was grateful for another reason as well: she felt no aftereffects of draining her magic as she had earlier. Sometimes the magic exhaustion would knock her down for a couple days, even with ethers to recover. As she had mentioned to Juste the other day, she rarely passed that self-employed limit for a reason.

She thought back to the reason she'd used so much magic in the first place. If she was honest, she lost her temper. Its existence had infuriated her, and she allowed herself to overlook the amount of power she was draining. Rather than making use of her usual finesse, she went at it with brute force, more or less. It was foolish, and she really shouldn't do it again. But now she was well aware of the mental effects that Replicas could have on someone. For that was what those things were, she believed. Whether they were made by alchemy in this world or science in hers, she had little doubt they were basically the same. "A Replica..." she muttered aloud.

Juste shivered again and stepped out from behind the trellis, grateful that he was at least only wet instead of wet, slimy, and foul smelling. "Did you say something, Miss Aqua?"

She looked up at his reappearance and blinked at him. "You look a bit like a drowned rat. Here, let me help you." She approached him and cast her Aero-Fire combo to dry him off.

Juste sighed as he magic began drying his clothing. "I had to get that slimy... whatever it was off of me. I couldn't stand the smell any longer."

"Oh I completely understand. I would have done the same thing if I had been doused in it like you were," she remarked sympathetically.

The last of the water evaporated off of his clothingand hair, and he smiled faintly. "Thank you, Miss Aqua." He then moved to sit down on the grass near her and began to rummage around in his coat. "Thankfully, my coat can get drenched multiple times, and it won't affect the things in my pockets." He pulled out a meal pack and handed it to her before taking one for himself. "Now what were you saying earlier?"

"Oh, not really. I was just saying that those things we fought seemed like Replicas, if a bit crude ones," she answered, unwrapping the dinner and heating it herself. The way she'd said it implied the word was a proper noun. Catching Juste's questioning look, she elaborated. "Back in the worlds I'm from, a scientist from a group called Organization XIII managed to create an artificial person, almost exactly like those we fought, tanks and all. I don't really know much about it, as I never met one myself, but Vexen's Replicas were identical to their counterparts, an exact copy of their appearance and using the same abilities. One of my friends, Riku, had been the basis for a Replica, and that one had been told that if he could defeat his original, he would become the original. Of course that wasn't true, but he believed it so much that he did everything in his power to defeat the real Riku. I'm told Vexen had also made Replicas of himself to help him with his research. I believe that his real goal was to create a heart, but that research is futile. It can't be done."

Thinking about the Organization's presence at Castle Oblivion kindled a small fire of anger in Aqua's heart, even now. That they had trespassed in that place, that she had created in order to protect Ven... It still incensed her. She had thought the castle's innate defense of messing with one's memories would prevent anyone from getting anywhere within it, but she had been wrong. At least they had never managed to locate the Chamber of Waking before she could return with Sora to awaken Ven. She shuddered to think what could have happened if Xemnas had found him.

Juste frowned in thought as he absorbed her words, and he ignored her little shiver. "It sounds like creating a heart is just as impossible as creating a soul. Some believe that if soulmates meet and have a child together, then a new soul will be born from theirs and go to the child, but no one knows if that's true.

"Doppelgangers, the things we faced back there, are created using magic and alchemy. All the maker needs is a little bit of us – a single drop of blood can be used if the maker has enough magic to make up for it. They have no souls; only magic keeps them alive. Any emotion you might have seen from them was not their own. If they were born in hatred, then that is what they display to the world."

"I don't know much about the creation of Replicas, as I never really wanted to know, but I know they involve the application of science, and probably a stolen heart. Memories would be nonexistent for most Replicas other than a basic understanding of movement, the instinct that a baby has. Riku's Replica was an exception, because a girl named Namine was coerced into manipulating the memories of Riku and Sora, and she made a copy that the Replica was given. I don't know how Vexen managed to make an exact copy of Riku, perhaps he formed him based on Sora's memories. Vexen, well, Even now, has always managed to do feats of science that would be utterly impossible were anyone else to attempt it. But as far as I can tell, even though Replicas were created artificially, since they do have a heart of their own, emotion is genuine, and they are for all intents and purposes a functional human being. Then again, I don't know if their life span is affected. All of the ones we know about were destroyed some years ago now."

"It makes me glad that our doppelgangers have no soul – it makes destroying them much easier. Such a being with a soul would not be able to help its evil ways if it was created for an evil purpose. I've heard that it is possible to create one with a soul, but I don't know of anyone who has succeeded in such an endeavor." Juste took a bite of his food and thought for a second.

"I am curious who created the doppelgangers that we faced. Death said that Dracula was here, but that he was not in control. If it wasn't Dracula that created them, who else would have the power to create and animate two doppelgangers at the same time?"

"What about the magic they use? That can't be naturally the dopplegangers, so wouldn't that also come from the creator? If that's the case, then they have to have immense power to keep both of them active at the same time. I have a lot of magic, and if it was using my abilities, one person alone would struggle to keep up with that. And they had to be animating yours as well. Regardless their affinity for our different types of magic, I can't imagine that could be in any way easy. Creating and keeping them both active as they fought against us had to be exhausting. It's too bad we won't be able to reach them in time to utilize any possible weakness due to it."

"Sadly no. Those that know how to create them all report that keeping them animated is a terrible drain, and most can barely maintain one, though it does get easier with repeated use. Though that is probably why they are so rare. Only Leon and Trevor have encountered them before, though that mere fact worries me a great deal. As far as I know, only Dracula would be able to animate two doppelgangers at once, yet he does not appear to be fully in charge of the premises. Death said he was here, but that the castle wasn't answering to him. And if the castle is not answering him, there goes a large source of power for him. He still, of course, is a powerful vampire without it, but the castle provides at least half of his power, through its joint connection with the Crimson Stone and the chaotic realm."

"That's what I thought." Aqua continued poking through her food. "So, Death. What exactly is he? He can't actually be the concept of death in a material form, surely."

"Death..." Juste laughed quietly. "To be truly honest, no one fully understands Death. He obviously isn't needed for one to die and pass on, as he is dormant when Dracula is not around. Perhaps he is not truly Death himself but just a spirit bound to the Crimson Stone that has taken on that appearance. Perhaps he _is_ Death personified, but he is subjugated to Dracula's will when Dracula is around but it a neutral being otherwise. We do not know, and none of us are too keen on asking him either. If he is an evil being, he will die for good along with Dracula when the Crimson Stone is destroyed. If he is a spirit bound to the stone, then he will be set free." He paused to pull a couple bottles of water out of his pocket and to toss one to Aqua before he continued.

"He certainly does seem to have some control of the souls of the dead and dying, as Leon witnessed him taking Walter's soul and placing it in the Crimson Stone. And to our horror, all the lesser vampires that the Belmonts destroyed after Walter's defeat were also funneled to the Crimson Stone via Death, so by the time Trevor faced him, Dracula was nearly a god himself. He commonly changes forms during the battle, taking on a more demonic appearance with new attacks, and striking him around where the Crimson Stone hangs around his neck in the only way to hurt him. Hits anywhere else are completely ignored.

"When he is defeated, his body is destroyed, Death goes dormant, at least as far as we know, and the Crimson Stone passes out of this world, beyond our reach. From that secure place, it begins gathering power and sending it to this world to resurrect the castle, and then Dracula, which starts the entire cycle over again. Sadly, we have been unable to find a way to destroy the Crimson Stone, despite centuries of searching."

"Why does the Crimson Stone resurrect him? Why doesn't it remain behind when Dracula is destroyed, and pass on to someone else?"

"The Crimson Stone seems to have some form of limited sentience to it, as did the Ebony Stone before its destruction. From what we can tell and from what our research has shown us, the stone has bound itself to Dracula's very soul, and the only way to break that bond would be to destroy the stone, destroy Dracula's soul, or somehow sever the connection..." Juste trailed off as a thought occurred to him, but he shook his head and continued with the explanation. "Since it is bonded to him in such a way, it keeps feeding power to his connected soul until he is able to resurrect, returning him to nearly full power every time. Like I said before, this process can be sped up by a sacrifice of some kind."

"Okay, so Death said the castle wasn't responding to Dracula, so while the enemy is most likely not him if we trust Death's information, we can assume that whoever managed to raise it is powerful if they can do that. This is further confirmed by the fact that they managed two very powerful dopplegangers at the same time. In other words, I'd say it's a safe bet that the one behind all of this is going to be an absolute pain to take down," Aqua concluded, finishing the last of her meal and burning the trash as Juste had. She drained her water bottle and tucked it away with her empty potion bottles.

Juste stood up. "Agreed, though as I said earlier, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Dracula is behind this somehow, and Death was just left out of the loop for the moment. Mathias could scheme with the best of them and come out on top, so the sooner we get to the bottom of this, the better."

Aqua rolled gracefully onto her feet again, brushing stray grass from her clothes. "Well, time to move on once again." She and Juste exited the sanctuary.

It was an easy walk through the room where they had fought the Elite, though Juste was a little unnerved to see that the shattered tanks were gone. The room looked strangely.. neat, and he spotted little vines peeking here and there out of cracks in the stone walls.

"Strange," he muttered as he pushed open the door at the opposite side of the room. The door led into yet another short featureless hallway, and a door at the end of that, led into the castle's catacombs.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust at the stench of rotting corpses, but over that he detected something that smelled faintly like perfume, and he walked forward to see that small crawling vines were growing over the coffins that were propped up against the walls, and across the bodies lying in their niches. Many of them had small, delicate flowers of various colors, which appeared to be the source of the perfume he was smelling.

"Looks like the Alura Unes have gone a bit out of control down here." he commented.

"I thought plant life didn't grow this much within the castle," Aqua commented, confused.

Juste grimaced. "Not normally no, but aside from the Unes that we encountered earlier there are the Alura Unes. Imagine a large flower, as tall as you, and in the center of that flower is a beautiful naked woman. Rather like the sirens of legend their beauty lures men to them, and once they are close enough the Aluras attack by sending sharp stalks up from the floor and flinging spikes at them. Their stalks defend them well from attack, so I dread encountering them. Even if you resist their lure, which is easy to do once you're aware of it, destroying them is still so difficult.

"Sometimes, as you can see, their presence is marked by vines, weeds, and flowers, so I expect to see at least a few down here."

"How do they affect women?" she asked curiously. Obviously, women who were attracted to other women would likely be affected, but how would they respond to women that were heteronormative? She supposed there wasn't much chance to find out, since it appeared that it was mostly men that investigated and fought in the castle here, so they may not know at all. "Or what about men who aren't attracted to women?"

Juste whipped his head around to stare at her. "Let us not speak of homosexuality please, Miss Aqua. I'd rather not think of that abomination." He gave her a hard stare for a second, and then he turned back to their surroundings. "I doubt their lure will affect you at all, especially since you know about them, but we will see." He began to walk forward. "Let's go. Keep an eye out for red skeletons down here; they often spawn from the coffins."

She lifted her eyebrows at his response, lifting up her hands in a gesture of surrender, trying very hard not to be personally offended. "There are also people who simply aren't attracted to anyone, but whatever, I have no wish to get into an argument over this," she remarked. Sometimes religions just came across as pompously rigid in their treatment of certain topics. The Greeks had no qualms about homosexuality; it was a regularity for a man to have a male lover. Other cultures she'd learned about in her travels and her free time were the same. Of course, many others had a similar outlook to Juste's on homosexuality. The differences often left her wondering how such views, whether positive or negative, formed in the first place.

Their very next step brought several plant-type Heartless warping into the catacombs. Among them were a handful of weak Creeper Plants, but large Dire Plants and a single black-and-coral Poison Plant accompanied them.

"Watch out for the dark one!" Aqua warned Juste, quickly throwing up a shield in front of them both to repel the seed attacks from the various plants. "That's a Poison Plant, its projectiles will poison you if they hit your skin. It's not a terribly strong poison but it can cause black spots in your vision that make it hard to see so avoid them at all costs. And its stem is too hard to take damage, you have to aim for the petaled head!"

"These Heartless are growing rather tiresome." Juste grumbled as he uncoiled the Vampire Killer, though he didn't think he would need it. If they were dealing with a creature capable of poisoning them, then staying at a distance was best. With that thought, he immediately cast Holy Lightning, and saw the Heartless flinching and making pained sounds as they tried uselessly to get away from the spell.

All the plants were, unfortunately for them, unable to remove themselves from their location. Aqua dropped her barrier and then cast a quick Reflect, causing all the seeds near her to bounce back to their origin, causing widespread damage to the Heartless who'd shot at her.

Juste rolled to the side to get out of the way of a volley of seeds the plants spat at him, and as soon as he regained his feet, he followed up with a Guided Frost spell. Plants hate cold, so why not? He dodged again, but as he stood up, the Poison Plant caught him directly in the chest with one of its seeds. He yelped as it cut right through his shirt, missing his breastplate by nary an inch. The small wound hurt far worse than he'd expected, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of gut wrenching nausea that rolled over him them, followed quickly by a painful muscle spasm that rippled over his entire body. He pitched down to his knees and fumbled for one of the antidotes in his pocket. Hopefully it would work just as well on Heartless poison as it did for the poison inflicted by Dracula's minions.

Aqua leapt in front of him again to shield him while he was down, casting Reflect again because it was truly the most useful spell in her arsenal right now. She did her best to direct all the seeds towards the Poison Plant to take it down immediately. The other plants' seeds hurt a surprising amount, but only the poisoned ones were truly bad news.

His fingers finally found the long, narrow bottle, and he pulled it out, popped the cork, and downed it in a single gulp as he was wracked with another spasm. The liquid tingled as it ran down his throat, and he sighed in relief as the nausea quickly vanished. He got back to his feet.

"Thank you, Miss Aqua. Now let's finish this, shall we?"

She nodded and stepped aside, sending a slew of fireballs at the Heartless nearest to her. The Creeper Plants disappeared immediately, though the Dire Plants took another hit. She accepted the barrage of seeds as a necessary evil in taking these things out now.

Juste darted to the left as the Poison Plant launched more seeds at him, and he responded with Magic Missile. The plant recoiled, and he gave it no time to recover, launching Holy Flame at it as soon as the previous spell ended. The fireball slammed straight into it and bounced around, hitting it twice more. The Heartless then exploded into black wisps, and he absently noted the crystal heart that rose up from it as he turned to see if any of the other Heartless remained.

After Aqua's continued assault while he had finished off the irritating ringleader, none remained, only smoke and vanishing hearts. Juste relaxed and returned the whip to his belt.

"The Heartless are certainly making things more hectic in here." he commented as they continued on their way. "Dracula's monsters are very prevalent in here, as you've seen, but adding the Heartless just adds much more difficulty to an already difficult trek."

"This one in particular was irritating," Aqua grumbled, casting a light Cure on the both of them for the numerous seed wounds they couldn't block or Reflect. "I'm getting a little sick of these plant-type Heartless, and all things considered there haven't been very many of them."

"I would hope that we won't see anymore once we're done with the garden that he catacombs seem to be turning into, but since we encountered them in the waterway, a place where plants outside the Unes and their ilk are never seen, I have a feeling we'll be encountering them elsewhere in the castle."

"Sadly, that doesn't surprise me. To be honest, I'm actually surprised they're type-casting here. Usually the Heartless that appear are random, unlike Castlevania's usual setting. You don't see just cold types in the cold waterways, or plants in a garden. They're far more random than that. It's very odd for me to see them act like this. They're almost... coordinated, which even when someone is controlling them practically never happens."

Juste cracked the whip against a large bat that swooped down from the ceiling at them. "That is indeed strange then, and that makes me wonder if someone from your area is here, influencing things somehow. If Death hadn't have told us that Dracula was not in control of the castle, I would think that he had found a way to summon and control the Heartless somehow."

She hummed in agreement, and focused on the enemies along their route as they moved forward. The red skeletons along the way didn't worry her. After all, they discovered that her keyblade worked quite well against them. She heard the telltale sound of stone grinding and immediately summoned her weapon as she turned, throwing her blade at the foe with a spin the way she had seen Ven do it, then summoned it back after it hit, collapsing the skeleton easily.

Juste smiled as he saw her throw her weapon, which then returned to her hand. "Impressive." he cracked the Vampire Killer at a smaller Une weed that sprouted a few feet in front of him. He then raised his head and fired off an ice spell at a small green skinned gremlin that was flying through the air, leaving little balls of floating fire from the large spoon it carried in its hands.

"Those are Ukobacks." he explained as the creature's eyes bulged at the attack before it died in a puff of smoke with a small cry. "They aren't dangerous, but the fires they create can be annoying."

"Although should their fire fall on the plants, I don't suppose you'd really complain," she commented in a lighthearted tone. As another red skeleton pulled itself out of a coffin down the path, she mentally commented that it was really a shame the only effective ways of killing the creatures required her to be fairly close. Otherwise she could simply fire a spell off from back here with no difficulty. Unfortunately, while she could do the Keyblde Raid attacks that Ven was talented at, she was not nearly as good, and preferred that her keyblade remain at her side. She was honestly pleased the previous one had been so successful. Usually she had trouble with it returning to her hand, so she had to consciously summon it back.

As they continued through the catacombs, Juste spotted what appeared to be an une in the floor ahead of him, and he paused and gestured for Aqua to stop.

She tilted her head, though she obeyed. "What's up?"

He gestured to the little green bud poking out of a gap in the mortar between the cobblestones that made up the floor. "I can't tell for sure until it sprouts, but seeing our environment, there is a good possibility that that's an Alura Une up there."

"Okay? How can you tell it's any different than the others?"

"I can't, but this is the kind of place where they like to appear, so just be careful as we approach it. If it is, it'll immediately grow defending stalks that we'll have to get through and start throwing barbs at us, so be careful."

 _I don't see how this place is special compared to the rest of these catacombs, but..._ "All right, I'll take your word for it." She shifted her stance to be a bit more prepared.

They resumed walking towards the bud on the floor, and it sprouted into what appeared to be a normal Une, but as they stepped closer, taller leaves erupted, and Juste jumped back just as the... bright pink? flower emerged, followed shortly by the naked woman in the center of it.

Aqua too leapt back at the unfurling of large leaves but then stood frozen for a long moment, looking at the gorgeous woman in the center of the vibrant flower. She couldn't remember ever seeing a woman as lovely as this one, and it took her completely by surprise, despite Juste's warning. She was so beautiful... Aqua stepped closer thoughtlessly as the woman gestured at them.

Juste paused for the barest moment as the woman gestured them forward, but he quickly shook his head and filled his mind with thoughts of his Lydie. Lydie was the one he loved, the one he had married, the one he intended to spend the rest of his life with. A demon born of Dracula's castle could never even compare.

He grabbed for one of his remaining vials of holy water and hurled it as hard as he could at the Alura Une before it could bring up its defensive stalks. The creature mewled in pain as the spikes went up, followed quickly by a volley of bards that it launched at him.

Juste's attack snapped Aqua out of her unintended reverie, and she jumped into battle with him, shooting a Firaga at the flower and the woman rested within. She tried not to think about why she'd gotten so ensnared; it would only slow her actions. This was a monster to be taken down; it would show her no mercy, so neither could she.

More stalks went up, forming a green wall that they couldn't get over or through, but the creature's barbs passed somehow through easily, flying out in waves that forced them to duck and roll all about the room to avoid getting hit. The barbs were long, sharp, and they embedded themselves into the floor and walls wherever they hit. He didn't want to think of the damage they would do to a person.

The creature dropped some of its stalks then, and he launched a Firestorm spell at it. It mewled again, and it felt its magic tugging at him, begging him to stop the attack and come closer, but he shrugged it off and focused on dodging the next wave of barbs.

Aqua dodged the many waves of barbs with finesse, throwing up a barrier to block them only when absolutely necessary. The creature's plea hit her harder than Juste, it seemed, for she stumbled in her evasive maneuvers and was struck hard by a streaking barb in her leg. She was lucky her clothing was so resistant to damage, as the attack should have pierced her through, but instead it was deflected by her leggings, and simply felt as though she'd be shot instead of skewered. She still cried out, however, and hastily threw up her shield to protect her from further attacks while she cringed from the surprisingly powerful pain.

"Miss Aqua, keep your shield up!" Juste called from his position, and he ducked and rolled under the next wave of barbs to get behind her. "How long can you hold it?" he asked as the more barbs bounced off the shield. Stalks tried to erupt from the floor beneath their feet, but thankfully, they were deflected as well.

"Almost indefinitely, as long as there are still attacks to bounce off it," she replied, wincing as her leg twinged again but pushing the pain away because it wasn't enough to warrant healing.

"Good. Here's my plan: we stay right here behind your shield, while I deal all the damage. Your shield is stopping the stalks, so I have a clear shot and should be able to bring it down quickly."

"That would work great, except that you can't attack from inside the barrier. I have to bring it down to attack, even with a spell. So I doubt it'll let you."

"I can just step outside of it for a second. If that doesn't work, then we'll revisit the issue."

"That should be fine."

The next wave of barbs bounced off the barrier around them, and Juste took a quick backwards, just enough to get him clear of Aqua's magic. He didn't give the demon any time to attack him from below. He cast a Salamander spell, followed quickly by a Stardust spell. As the creature was reeling, he ducked back inside the barrier just as a stalk erupted from the floor where he'd been standing.

He waited until the next wave of barbs flew by, and then he stepped out to the right and cast another Salamander spell.

The creature shrieked, and it and its stalks erupted into flames, burned, withered away, and vanished.

Aqua released her barrier at last and rolled her shoulders to loosen them after needing to keep her arms outstretched for a long period of time. She rolled her neck too, and then commented, "Pretty sure you did the bulk of that battle. I feel a little useless."

"Don't." he told her as they continued forward. "Having you here made that so much easier. Alura Unes seem to take more hits before dying, but the difficulty is in getting close enough to touch them. Without you here, I would have had a much harder time."

"Don't tell me you can't shoot spells at range without me," she teased.

He chuckled at her teasing. "If I can hit them, then they can hit me."

"I suppose," she allowed, and they moved on through the catacombs.

The area they were in seemed to be smaller than earlier ones, and Juste was happy to see the glowing blue doors of a sanctuary at the end of the long corridor that they had been walking down.

"It is very strange," he said as they walked in, "normally the catacombs are the darkest, most depressing place in the castle, but they were oddly bright and cheery this time." He had barely used any magic, but he touched the statue anyway.

"Yes, it seemed rather easier than other areas have been," she agreed, following suit with the statue. "Perhaps so much power was expended elsewhere that less was available to use in this area?"

"Do you want to take a respite for a few minutes? Or continue on to the Elite?"

"I don't think it's necessary. Let's keep going."

Juste made a grand gesture with his hand as they walked back towards the door and back into the corridor. "Then let us away."

The door to the Elite's chambers was at the end of the corridor, and he paused outside of it to try and get a feel for what was in it.

She stopped with him and searched with her own abilities to see if she could sense anything. She couldn't feel any darkness, so that was a plus, but she hadn't noticed that with the doppelgangers either, so that might not mean much. "I can't sense anything specific. What about you?"

"I feel faint hints of magic similar to the ones on the doppelgangers, but not near as strong or powerful. I can also just faintly a musty scent, like old clothing that's been stored away for years."

"I suppose we'll just have to see then," she said, and took the prerogative to push the door open. They stepped through, and found themselves in a larger chamber matching the rest of the catacombs. The room was empty save for a door on the opposite side, and a large stone coffin standing upright in the center.

The door of the coffin opened suddenly, the stone slab crashing onto the ground, and a mummy stumbled out. Aqua took one look at the dusty, dry state of the creature and lit it on fire, remembering well how easily old paper and fabrics catch flame. She still hadn't forgiven Lea for unintentionally burning a shelf of old manuscripts she'd found when they were clearing an old castle of a Heartless infestation.

The mummy went up in unquenchable flames, and the two watched blandly as the monster burned to ash. A small metal bit dropped into the dust where it had once stood.

"Is that it? That was terribly anti climatic."

Juste stared at where the mummy had been, hand raised to attack, other hand resting on the Vampire Killer. A puff of smoke waffed up from the ashes. Then he felt his face break into a smile, then he chuckled, and the chuckle grew into a full laugh that echoed through the empty space.

Aqua quickly broke down into laughter as well. She found herself grateful for the encounter; laughter seemed fairly rare in this place, and it was good to release the stress of the impending doom with surprise and amusement. As she snorted once more to herself, she walked over the pile of ash to claim the crest piece. She tossed it to Juste, as he had the other pieces. "Here, easiest boss prize I've ever won," she quipped with a smile.

Juste's laugh dropped down to chuckles again as he stuffed the piece in a pocket. "Ah, if only all of the Elite were like this, but I'll take it where I can get it." He pulled out his pocket watch and looked at the time. "It's been only a few hours since we left the last sanctuary. Do we continue or go rest?"

"We haven't exactly expended much energy. We might as well continue. There seems to be a sanctuary placed outside each elite room, so if need be we can take a break before facing the next one," she suggested logically.

Juste nodded with a smile, and they continued through the door opposite the one they had come through. It led again to another short featureless hallway, and once they were through it, the smell of water rushed up to greet them.

"We're back in the waterway." he said as they walked down another short corridor, which ended with a ladder that went up a circular shaft.

"A ladder leading up into the waterways, where anything could be waiting right outside? Gentlemen first, I think," she joked, though she was actually slightly serious about it.

Juste couldn't help the smirk. "Of course, my lady." He began to climb up the ladder, which to his disgust, was a little slimy, and he grinned to himself at the sound Aqua made when she touched the rungs. The ladder went up for a good distance, and he could see light above him, but it was dim like the rest of the waterway.

Bleh, gross, Aqua thought unhappily as she followed Juste up the ladder. Now I'm equally glad I didn't go first. Once they arrived at the top, they climbed out of the hole to find themselves in a very large stone room. They stood on a raised, circular, stone platform that was surrounded by water. "I assume the creature this time is somewhere in the water?" Aqua inferred.

Juste turned his head just as a large fin broke the surface on the right and began to circle the platform. "So it would seem. Two Elites one right after the other. How... droll."

"Well, it's not like the previous one was any sort of challenge," she replied reasonably. She quickly recognized that the water could be disadvantageous to both them and the creature itself. Keeping an eye on the fin and the ripples in the water, she summoned her keyblade and cast Thundaga on the water. No matter where the elite goes, it can't avoid it, and the electricity will sting.

Juste laughed when the electricity from her spell flashed across the water, but that laugh ended abruptly when a massive fish, several times his height in length and with a trident-wielding Fishman on its back, leapt out of the water to get away from the spell. He yelped and jumped to the side as it landed right where he had been standing, and it shimmied across the platform and back into the water, whereupon it disappeared under the surface.

He looked over at Aqua, who was laughing. "Enjoy it while you can," he grumbled, "I'm sure your turn is coming."

He turned away from her as the fin broke the surface again, and the fish leapt out of the water a second time, though this time it jumped clear over the platform, while the rider jumped down to land between him and Aqua. Its trident created a small shockwave when it slammed into the platform, and before it could begin to swing the weapon around, Juste swung the Vampire Killer, catching it in the leg.

Aqua couldn't help giggling at the sight of the fish moving itself across the platform like that. As the skeletal rider hit the ground, she made a short jump to avoid the shockwave and closed in on it from the opposite side from Juste. She dashed in, coating her keyblade with fire, and slashed at it, landing a solid hit due to its distraction over the whip. It growled and whirled its trident in large broad strokes, forcing Aqua to leap back out of its range. Suddenly, she heard the sound of snapping jaws behind her and had to jump aside again as the giant shark-like fish shimmied its way across the platform again. She made sure to smack its tail soundly with her blade as it passed, leaving a long scratch on the cartilage.

She tried to return her attention to the skeleton, but it was no longer on the platform, as it had jumped onto its mount as it went by. The fish and rider circled the stone, and Aqua electrocuted the water again, this time aiming directly at the monsters. The lightning hit, and they shrieked with rage as the water amplified its effect.

Juste dodged to the right to get out of the way as the giant fish jumped back up on the platform. He raised his hand in the air and cast Holy Lightning, and both the fish and its rider screeched in pain and dove back into the water to get away from him.

The two surfaced again, ringing the platform while the rider lashed out at them with its weapon whenever either of them strayed too close. So Aqua cast a fire spell at it instead. The fireball crashed into the fish's side, and its rider was knocked off onto the stone floor as the fish flailed, a slight scent of roasted fish bone permeating the air. The rider leapt to its feet and rushed the nearest target, which was Juste. She was just about to dart in and assist when the fish splashed out of the water onto the edge of the dais and shot a large blue beam from its mouth, which it swept across the platform. Aqua jumped above it reflexively when it came near her twice (she was the object of its ire, after all), and she glared at it. "This fish is a pain," she muttered. Let Juste focus on the rider. She had a fish to fry.

Juste backflipped to avoid the swinging trident and swung out with the Vampire Killer. The whip cracked against the creature's feet, and it jumped back to avoid him. He followed it up with another lightning spell that arced across the distance between him and connected with the trident. The weapon proceeded to glow like a lightning bug, and the Fishman snarled in pain but swung at him again anyway.

The fish returned to the water, and Aqua shocked the pool once again, this time to intentionally force it onto the platform. As soon as it broke through the surface, she fired a Triple Firaga at it, and the missiles followed it as it arched over the platform. The magic splashed against its underbelly and the creature made a pained guttural sound. She cast a simple Gravity spell to force it to the ground, after which she dashed to it and struck it with her blade in the same spots her flame spells had hit. As soon as it was released from her gravity spell, the fish flailed, successfully knocking Aqua into the water with its tail as it frantically bounced towards the water itself.

Juste heard the splash, but he was too busy dodging the Fishman's swinging trident to investigate. He ducked under a swing, rolled away to avoid a stab, and countered with a fireball to the creature's face, followed by another attack with the Vampire Killer. His family's weapon caught the Fishman directly in the face, and it jumped away from him and returned to its mount's back.

Aqua heaved herself back onto the platform out of the water, swearing colorfully under her breath. She had spent maybe a little too much time around pirates recently. By the time she recovered, the fish had returned to the water as well, no doubt to soothe its burns. She noted that the rider had returned to the fish's back as well, and she quickly rolled away from the edge to avoid getting slashed by its trident.

Juste eyed the creature and its rider as it swam around the platform. "I've had enough of you." he said under his breath as he watched Aqua dodge the swinging trident.

"Miss Aqua," he said, which prompted her to turn her head slightly towards him as she also watched the giant fish swim around, "when it jumps up onto the platform next, cast your most powerful lightning magic at the trident." She nodded, and he turned to watch the large fish as it dove under the surface again. A trail of bubbles marked its passage, and he called his magic up as it seemed to pause. With a spray of water, it broke the surface and dove onto the platform.

"Now!" Juste yelled to Aqua, but he did not pause to see if she had done so. He had only a few seconds. Magic raced down his arm and out through his hand, and the same lightning that he had used to destroy the giant skeleton and his doppelganger arced down from above.

Aqua waited for his signal and shot a strong Thundaga spell focused precisely on the trident. However, when her magic met his, it combined in similar manner to when they had fought Legion, and their individual spells turned into one truly impressive lightning strike that temporarily blinded the both of them. It caught the Fishman's trident right on its center point, and for a second, the weapon glowed before the electricity traveled down the shaft and into the Fishman's hands and arms, and then down into the rest of its body, out through its feet, and into its mount. The two magic users received a brief image of their enemies' highlighted skeletons before both creatures exploded in a shower of bones, charred meat, and blood.

The humans were, unfortunately, covered in said blood and chunks of meat and guts. Aqua was a blank slate for a few moments as the events slowly sunk into her brain.

Juste reached up and plucked a chunk of charred meat out of his hair. "That was certainly effective." he said as he looked around at the mess. "We should have done that from the start."

Aqua finally snapped out of her temporary stupor and slowly, dreading what she might see, looked down at herself. She let out a disgusted shriek at the fleshy remnants splattered across her clothes, skin, and hair. She had been closest to the fish's belly when it was electrocuted, and so got the worst of the spread. She took a forced, deep breath in and out twice before she deigned to speak a word. And then the best she could form was a high-pitched, furious, "Gross! Augh! Not! Okay!"

Juste watched her with a slight smile, amused at her reaction. "Calm yourself, Miss Aqua. I'm sure that there is a sanctuary up ahead you can wash up at."

"Easy for you to say, this is normal for you!" she muttered in a low growl. "Heartless do not explode into flesh and blood when you kill them, neither do Unversed or Nobodies, they are so much cleaner, this is not in any way okay." The rest of her tirade became unintelligible for him to make out as she checked that the water in the surrounding pool was no longer electrified, and then she stomped to the edge and dropped straight into it to get the guts off of her as soon as absolutely possible. Smelling like the fish that once lived in these waters was much preferable at the moment to walking around covered in its entrails. She fully intended to bathe at the nearest opportunity as well, but for now, she had to at least get most of it off of her skin.

Juste turned away as she jumped into the water, and he cast his eyes over the platform and saw a glint in the middle near the shaft that they had come up through. He stepped around smoking bones and grilled meat and picked it up. It was yet another piece of the shield that they needed.

"Five down," he commented as he looked at it, "one more to go."

There was a rumbling sound to his right, and he looked in that direction as the platform began to shake. A stone walkway rose up out of the water, which allowed them access to the doorway on the far side of the room.

Behind him, he heard Aqua climbing out of the water, and he turned to look at her as he stuffed the piece into his pocket along with the others. "Shall we?"

"Gladly," she agreed, and they made their way out of the chamber. Aqua considered drying herself off, but since it appeared that they were going to be spending more time in the waterways, she realized it would be rather pointless. She supposed that at least she was already wet, so it wasn't going to be a shock getting wet once again.

As they exited the large chamber, Juste spotted the glowing blue doors of a sanctuary, and more importantly, the glowing green doors of a warp room. He could also hear the waterfall that they had seen earlier in the waterway, though it seemed to be above them. A glance up confirmed this as it showed him the large vertical shaft that stretched up quite a distance, with a stream of water pourding down to splash down in front of the sanctuary doors.

"Once we've dried off and rested a bit," he said, "we can go into that room there." He pointed to the warp room. "That is a warp room, and it's certainly connected to another one somewhere in the castle, which will allow us to travel there instantly. I think I saw one on the other side of that chasm that we encountered in the chapel earlier, but there was no way for us to reach it."

"Oh, you have such things here?" she confirmed with interest. "We have points that work similarly in worlds I've visited. I don't tend to use them as much since I can use my glider directly to enter the Lanes Between, but if you have a ship instead, they can teleport you directly outside the world into your ship," Aqua explained rapidly. They headed towards the sanctuary, where they replensihed their magic with the statue.

Juste wasn't sure what she had just been talking about, so he chose to simply ignore it. "Every area of the castle has one somewhere, so I'm sure there are others that we just haven't found yet. Hopefully, the one next door will take us to either the one area in the chapel we were unable to reach, or to the area above the entryway."

"Whichever it is, I hope it gets us significantly closer to our goal. This castle is exhausting, and I'm eager to be done with it." Yet she knew instinctively that while they were closer with 5 pieces of the crest gathered, they still had a ways to go. "I don't usually need to remain in the same place for quite this long," she admitted. "Most of the areas I've been haven't required a lengthy journey through a castle as maze-like as this one."

"Let me assure you I don't enjoy it here either. The last time I was in the castle I found out once I was out that I had been in here for six days. It's almost as though time has no meaning here, and it's very disorienting.

"At least though we have only one more Elite to deal with the finish the crest, and then we can see what's going on in that courtyard. Though, as I said before, I still suspect we'll have to deal with Dracula at one point."

"Yes, and doesn't that sound like a ball of fun?" she replied sarcastically. Before Juste could settle himself on the grass, Aqua stated, "I'm going to take a bath right away, is that going to bother you?" She didn't care about modesty after living among boys and training with weapons from an early age, but Juste's world had rather more problems with that. It was the courteous option to warn him before she started stripping at the back of the fountain, the lattice of the trellises providing cover or not.

"Not at all, m'lady" he said as he stepped towards the door. "I'll just go rinse myself off a bit in the waterfall outside. Just let me know when you're finished."

"I'll be quick, and yes I'll come get you when I'm done," she promised, then turned toward the fountain. She removed a small bottle from the pocket containing her tent and smiled at it, setting the bio-friendly soap next to pool while she cast a Fire spell in the water to bring the water up to a pleasing, hot temperature. Cleanliness need not be entirely uncomfortable. She kept the soap on her at all times so that should something of this sort occur on a world without modern buildings, such as a swamp land or marsh she had to investigate, she could wash herself clean without damaging the ecosystem of the wildlife around her.

She set to washing first herself, then her clothes, though they mostly just needed the fish scent beaten out of them, since they didn't stain at all from the aftermath of the fight. Overall she took perhaps ten minutes at a maximum, and then she put on her dripping clothes and sloshed out to collect Juste so she could dry the both of them at the same time.

By the time she was finished, he was shivering again, as the water from the falls had been freezing cold, colder even than the water he'd bathed in earlier had been. At least though he was once again relatively free of foul scents and slimy fluids. Still, her opening the door and telling him he could come back in was a welcome relief, and once inside the sanctuary, he frowned at her when he noted that, despite being soaking wet, she didn't appear to be chilled at all.

"Something the matter?" she questioned due to his expression, as she summoned Stormfall to dry them off in her usual way.

"How in Heaven's name are you not freezing, Miss Aqua? I know that that water is cold."

She looked at him as though he was missing the obvious. "I heated it first, of course."

"You can do that?" He stared at her in surprise. "That would have been wonderful to know earlier."

She suppressed a smile and raised an eyebrow. "You didn't ask."

He huffed and walked away, over to the statue, where he sat down and pulled some beef jerky out of his pocket.

"Oh, don't be like that," she said, rolling her eyes. "It's not like you told me when you were bathing. I would have offered to heat it for you if I'd known, but you washed while I was asleep. That's not my fault." She retrieved an apple from one of her own bigger-on-the-inside pockets. Apples were good fruits; they had a long lasting shelf life. She was glad she'd chosen to bring a few with her, as she hadn't been entirely sure how long she'd be there.

"It wouldn't have been appropriate." he said. "As it was, I was pushing the rules simply by bathing in the same room as you, even if you were asleep."

Aqua was sure that must have been quite uncomfortable for him, but she didn't have much patience for that mentality herself. She refrained from saying as much, however, choosing to chomp on her apple instead.

The room was silent as they each focused on their respective snack, and after a few minutes, Juste finished off his beef jerky. "Are you ready to go?"

She quickly consumed the last few bites of apple and burned the core with minor difficulty. Such juicy fruits did not take to flame easily. "Yeah, I'm good now." They exited the sanctuary and entered the warp room.

Juste felt the magic of the room whisper across his skin and stir his hair as they stepped through the doors. The room was square like the ones he had seen before, but that was where the similarity ended. Instead of multiple circular doors embedded in the wall, there were long lines of glowing runes inscribed into the floor, and all of the lines ran to the center of the room, where they wound around a small raised, circular platform. More runes were scratched into the ceiling, leading to a large disc embedded in the center of the stone ceiling. The glow of the runes filled the room with a soft light, and the entire place hummed from the magic levels.

He stepped onto the platform and looked back at Aqua. "To activate one of these," he explained, "step onto the platform and mentally command the room to send you on. You cannot always pick a destination with most of these, and we don't know where they lead anyway. Keep the mental command firm in your mind or the teleportation will fail and you'll just end up here again. Do you understand?" She nodded at him, and he gave her a faint smile. "Then I shall see you shortly."

He looked up at the rune etched in the disc above him and commanded it to send him to the next waypoint. The runes glowed brighter, and the magic in the room increased, ruffling his hair as he was lifted off the floor. He felt the power flickering across his skin, and the room vanished in a white light for a second. He then landed hard on his feet, and the glow vanished to reveal a room just like the one he had left. He stepped down off the platform, turned to look at it, and waited for Aqua to arrive.

Well this was different. She had never seen something like the warp room before. The warp points she was familiar with were more or less simple, glowing, green circles. This room was something quite different. She stepped onto the plate carefully and attempted to concentrate on it sending her elsewhere. It must have worked because next thing she knew, Juste stood nearby again. She gingerly hopped down from the platform and looked toward the door. "That was a bit different than what I'm used to, but it works."

Juste nodded at her. "I am grateful that Trevor encountered them during Dracula's 1479 rise, otherwise I would have had no idea what they were when I encountered them the last time I was in this castle. Like the rest of the structure, they seem to change in appearance, though Simon and Christopher never saw them at all. Neither did Leon, and Trevor did not see them on his first run in 1476. They make traversing this place so much easier and quicker. Now let's see where we are, shall we?"

He didn't wait for an answer as he walked across the floor and through the green doors. He stepped out into a well appointed hallway, like something one would see in a wealthy lord's manor house. Beautiful wood inlay floors gleamed with the candlelight from the gold chandeliers above, gilded frames held intricately done portraits, and tables with vases of beautiful flowers in full bloom lined the walls. He could see doors and staircases to upper levels, which meant that they would be climbing a great deal like they had been in the chapel. Just down the corridor, he could see maids in purple dresses and white aprons busily cleaning the floors. Not too far away, in a small alcove, he spotted an open hatchway in the floor. A quick glance down through it showed the castle entrance that they had passed through ages ago.

"Well, we know where we are in the castle now." he said as he spoke quietly to avoid attracting the maids' attention. "We're above the castle entrance, and that -" He pointed at the opening in the floor. "- is the opening in the ceiling of the entrance that I pointed out to you just before we encountered the zombies after we first came in.

"I have a feeling that we will see our last Elite that we need to deal with in this area somewhere." he said quietly as Aqua joined him, so not to attract the maids' attention. They looked human, but his senses were quick to inform him that they weren't.

She caught on to the reason for his soft voice easily. She felt that the women ahead were not right as well. "Whoa. What's with the big change in architecture?" she asked in a low voice, glancing at the new surroundings.

"We're in the living quarters – or what passes for them in this place. I seriously doubt Dracula would spend any time here, even if he lived long enough to leave his throne room. I suspect that, like the sanctuaries, it is a hold over from Walter's castle, since he truly lived in his castle, but there is no way to be sure." He began to walk forward as he put his hand on the Vampire Killer. "It's all upstairs from here. I'm sure this place will connect with the castle keep, which contains the throne room, at the top."

He walked down the hall, his booted heels echoing loudly in the space, and the first maid made note of him.

She curtsied prettily and said something that sounded like "Yo-ko-so," that he didn't understand and then made a flying kick at his head. He dodged it and lashed out with the whip. The tip caught the maid solidly in the chest, and she made a short scream and collapsed to the floor and vanished, leaving behind the cleaning rag she had been using to mark where she had stood.

"What? 'Welcome'?" Aqua translated incredulously as she sidestepped the maid when she attacked Juste in front of her. "Isn't that rather hypocritical?" The sound from the short fight attracted another maid's attention, who also welcomed them before launching herself at Aqua. Aqua summoned her blade and slashed the maid in the same motion, and the girl disappeared like the other.

Juste looked at Aqua with an incredulous expression. "Welcome? Is that what that means? They're welcoming us before they try to kill us?"

"Yes indeed," she confirmed, a bemused look on her face. "'Youkoso' is a basic greeting in Japanese meaning 'welcome' or 'nice to meet you'. Seems a little ironic, really, but whatever..."

"You are a lady of many talents, Miss Aqua." Juste commented as they went down the hall towards the staircase at the other end. "Magic, weaponry, skills in battle, and now a strange language that, to my knowledge, no one has ever spoken before."

"I'm glad to impress," she replied with a smile.

A large ball of fire forming in the air in front of them forced him to stop, and a large winged creature with red skin and long horn materialized, hovering on large wings.

"Lesser demons," Juste said in warning. "They hit very hard and can dive very quickly, but they aren't too difficult to the destroy."

As the new enemy appeared, she quickly decided that ice would be effective against something that seems to be fire-based. "Blizzara!" she cast, sending a large chunk of ice very quickly at the demon.

Aqua's ice spell hit the creature directly in the face, and it turned its attention to her. Juste decided to use its distraction against it, and it completely ignored him as he cast Hydro Storm. The holy water rained down, and the demon seemed to freeze in midair, before he slowly vanished into a dark portal that appeared behind it.

"Not very difficult as I said," he added as they went up the steps, "but their tendency to appear right over your head is very annoying."

They climbed the first flight of stairs and continued down another hallway. As they neared the opposite end, they came upon a set of skeletons arranged in front of the door they needed to go through to proceed. Aqua glanced up when she noticed something in the corner of her eye, and found an eyeball floating around. "Exactly what is this?" she asked Juste, as she realized the skeletons were arranged in a rather familiar pattern.

Juste couldn't help the smile that appeared on his face as he looked at the ten skeletons, all neatly arranged in a triangle formation with the peeping eye floating around the hallway nearby.

"Leon had left notes about this," he said, "but I'd never thought I'd see it myself."

"They look like you could throw something at them and they'd all collapse, lined up like that," she commented, images of bowling in Disney Town flitting through her mind. The eye suddenly dove from the ceiling, causing fire to erupt from the ground nearby. Aqua leaped back instinctively.

Juste smirked when he saw that the peeping eyes was lined up perfectly with the skeletons. "Exactly." He cracked the whip at the downed eye, which sent it rolling across the floor to crash into the first skeleton, which in turn knocked down the two behind it, and the three behind them, and then finally the four behind them. All ten skeletons fell apart under the force, and the peeping eye righted itself and floated back into the air, looking a bit dizzy.

Four more skeletons, standing in a square formation, spawned then, and Juste turned to Aqua. "Would you care to take the next round, Miss Aqua?"

She watched the display with wide eyes, and shook her head slightly. "I cannot believe this is happening," she said with a tinge of awe in her voice. "This is a bit surreal." But she waited for the eye to drop down again, whereupon she bashed it straight into the new skeletons. Disney Town games really came in handy in the most unexpected places.

Juste laughed and applauded when she knocked all four skeletons down in one strike. The peeping eye righted itself again, and three more skeletons, standing in a diagonal line appeared. He walked over to where he wanted the peeping eye to go to lure it over, and when it dropped down, he sent it rolling over, sending the skeletons crashing to the floor in pieces. No more skeletons spawned, and he hit the peeping eye one last time, causing it to burn up from the tip of its long tail up.

Aqua shook her head one more time at the silliness of that whole event before they pressed on once more. They scaled the stairs of a few more floors, battling a few more maids and lesser demons on the way, along with a wave of minor Heartless, until they caught sight of the telltale doors of a sanctuary. "The last Elite must be through those other doors then," Aqua commented with a nod towards said doors.

"I would say so." Juste replied. "Shall we take a rest and have something to eat before we go in?"

"Sounds like a good idea. Always best to take on a potentially difficult battle energized," she answered, and they once again entered the sanctuary and rejuvenated their health and magic. Aqua took a seat and rolled her neck and shoulders idly.

Juste handed out the meal packs, and they ate quickly, faster than they normally did. Perhaps, Juste thought, they were both hoping to get the last piece of the crest and be done with this entire mess.

Not that he believed for a second that they would be. He was still absolutely certain that Dracula was behind everything in some way. They just had to find out how.

On Aqua's part, she couldn't shake the feeling that someone from her part of the universe was involved. How else could there have been Heartless here? Though admittedly they'd been much less densely packed in the castle than most of the worlds she visited, likely because this place had enough of its own monsters to throw at them.

After resting for a short time after their food was finished, the two pushed themselves up and they head to the Elite's doors. "I feel something dark, but it's sort of...dampened? Like it's not entirely full of darkness. It's hard to explain," Aqua attempted to describe before they entered.

"Not very powerful." Juste said in agreement. "Probably one of the weaker Elites."

She nodded, and they pushed open the doors. Aqua looked up, and stopped short at the sight of a familiar head of brown hair and hakama pants. Her voice rang out in the silence.

"Terra?"

 **OOOOOO**

 **A/N 3:** And before ANY of you start carrying on about Juste being homophobic or some such, bear in mind that he is a devout Eastern Orthodox Christian from 18th century Europe, and such an attitude about homosexuality was the norm then. Lita_Snow and myself absolutely do not agree with him on this matter.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** This was supposed to be posted early as a Christmas present of sorts. but the doc manager decided to give me the upraised middle finger instead. I still can't upload, but I CAN copy/paste the new chapter into an old file. I'm a genius, I tell you, and I TOTALLY didn't get this idea from the forums, m'kay?

 **8.**

"What are you doing here?" Aqua questioned, surprise evident in her voice. "How did you get in here?"

"I'm not entirely sure myself," Terra admitted. "I don't really remember."

Aqua frowned. Something had to be odd about this. Weren't they in the middle of a castle? But somehow that didn't seem to matter at the moment. Seeing him now, she realized that the feeling she'd had before they entered the room made more sense, and she was confused that she hadn't recognized his signature right away. Terra had darkness in him even now, but he'd been working to control and utilize it the way Master Riku did.

"Miss Aqua," Juste said in a warning tone as she began to walk forward, "that's not who you think it is."

She heard Juste say something as she walked forward but she didn't quite catch it. And anyway, talking to Terra was more important. "Are you sure you don't remember anything?" she reiterated, concern written on her face. "Tell me everything you know, maybe we can figure it out together."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Aqua, it's all a blur."

She didn't even seem to hear him as she continued walking closer, and the Vampire Killer crackled with anger as Juste rested his hand on it. He walked up behind her and grabbed her by the shoulder to stop her.

"That's not your friend, Miss Aqua."

She removed his grip almost unconsciously, as if she didn't know he was even there anymore. "Maybe you should just come with me, Terra. We can figure out what happened along the way."

"That sounds like a good idea. Let's go," Terra agreed, tilting his head toward the next door.

Aqua nodded and continued to walk towards him.

Certain now that they were dealing with an Incubus, Juste ran forward and lashed out with the whip as Aqua reached out to take the creature's hand. The Vampire Killer whistled through the air, passed close enough to Aqua's head to stir her hair, and cracked right in the center of the incubus' face.

"Back to Hell whence you came, demon." he growled as he moved to stand between it and Aqua.

Terra snarled from the pain, and suddenly Aqua was sure that this was not Terra. He would never make an expression like that. She had grown up with Terra, and knew him better than anyone. She leapt back instinctively, as more and more began to click together. They were in the middle of an evil castle surrounded by monsters of all shapes and sizes; there was simply no way he could have gotten here in the first place, let alone before they did. She suddenly remembered that she and Juste had had a conversation about incubi and succubi back when they were in the forest on their way to the castle. She had even identified at the time that Terra would be the most likely subject for them to choose with her. How had she forgotten? She'd fallen under its sway so easily.

The incubus, seeing that his prey was lost to him, growled and dropped the illusion.

Juste smiled with relief when Aqua jumped back, and he turned his attention to the demon in front of them.

It was very much like the succubi that Leon had described; tall with a slender, curvy body, flawless skin, long, luxurious dark hair, clawed hands and feet, and two large bat like wings. It was also dressed very much the same, with the bare minimum of clothing. It was still obviously male however, and it snarled in rage as it flapped its wings to hover above the floor.

"Such a shame," it sneered, "I had hoped for a meal tonight."

"It would be really nice if Terra lookalikes would stop attacking me," Aqua muttered as she watched the illusion fade. She summoned her blade. "Remind me, Juste, any other tricks to watch out for or weaknesses to exploit?"

Juste called his magic up as the incubus flew higher up above them. "Holy and light elemental things work best, but watch out when it makes copies of itself. Attacking a copy instead of the real thing will result in a nasty shock."

The incubus snarled again, and a bolt of lightning streaked down from its hands to the floor, whereupon it then moved across the polished wood in a wave. Juste jumped over it and launched a fireball at the creature's wings, hoping to bring it back down to floor level.

Aqua jumped the wave as well, and sent a Triple Blizzaga at the creature as she landed, directing each of the three ice blocks in different directions. The incubus couldn't escape all four blows, and took a chance with one of Aqua's ice blocks rather than risk Juste's fire. This turned out to be a bad decision, as the ice collided painfully with the forearm of one wing, and the force of the blow sent it spiralling to the ground before it could recover.

Juste hurled a holy water at the downed incubus as it shook off the ice from Aqua's attack, and it screeched in pain as the holy substance made contact. Smoke rose from its burns as it flapped its wings again and flew backwards to get away from them. It raised its hands again and began hurling balls of pure magic at them, which forced them to dodge as they tried to close the distance between them and it.

Aqua rolled to the side, then threw up a barrier to begin charging her next magic attack. As soon as the barrier fell, she shot a fireball of her own at the incubus. The flames caught on a wing, and it was clearly struggling to maintain its flight. She quickly dodged another magic bolt before firing off a set of low magic ice crystals.

The incubus dropped to the floor to snuff the flames on its wing, and once the flames were out, the damage to the wing sail was clearly visible, making it unlikely that it would be able to fly anymore. It snarled again and spun around in place, creating a little whirlwind around it. It then split off into three, and Juste back up as he tried to figure out which one was real and which were the illusions.

Aqua wasn't far away and also took up a defensive stance while she attempted to analyze them. If only they were like the Mirror from Dwarf Woodlands all those years ago...it had been so easy to find the real one there. But these three were all acting independently from one another, so any one of them could be the real thing. It was nearly impossible to tell. "Exactly how much does that counter attack hurt?" she questioned, trying to weigh the potential costs and benefits of taking a chance.

"It can be enough to bring you to your knees, though you just might be able to avoid it if you're quick enough." Juste replied as he eyed the three creatures in front of them. They were all flittering about the other side of the room, but none of them were attacking. Perhaps that meant that this one was not powerful enough to attack through its copies?

Only one way to find out.

He pulled his cross and sent it spinning towards the nearest one. The thing didn't even flinch and vanished in a cloud of flower petals and leaves. Juste tensed his leg muscles to roll away but before he could, he felt the short hairs on the back of his neck stand up, followed by the feeling of something running through him, from his head down. He would have yelled if he could have, but his muscles locked up painfully tight and refused to obey him.

She glanced to Juste to find that he had just been hit by a massive bolt of lightning! She quickly cartwheeled away in case it happened to cause a chain reaction should she be close enough. Across the room, the second copy disappeared, and the incubus flashed in to Juste, who hadn't moved since the strike. Had he been paralyzed? It seemed unlikely that he wouldn't have had time to roll aside otherwise. The creature grabbed his face and kissed him, to her utter surprise, and in doing so, some of the damage they'd done to its wing healed. She recognized then that somehow the incubus could regain its health by presumably leeching it from them. She was too far away to strike it easily now, but she took a page from Ven's book once again and threw her keyblade at it to force it to retreat. She couldn't afford to coat it with magic like she typically would, however, for fear of hitting Juste in the process.

Just felt the hands on either side of his face, and... no, no. No! A pair of lips pressed against his, and he tried to pull himself away, but his muscles ignored his commands. Sara crackled in rage in his hand, but she was unable to help him anymore than he could help himself at the moment. He felt his life force draining, moving from him to the incubus that still had its mouth pressed against his. His knees trembled slightly, and the kiss was suddenly broken as the creature snarled and jumped back away from him.

Juste staggered back on legs that shook from the aftereffects of the drain and wiped out his mouth. He could _taste_ that thing... He wiped at his mouth again and spat on the floor before he raised his head and glared at the incubus as it hovered nearby. Its wing had healed enough for it to fly, and it gave him a coy smile and licked its lips.

"Delicious," it sighed, "I have never before had the pleasure of tasting a Belmont."

Juste ordered himself to stop shivering like a frightened child and met its gaze. "You will never get a second one, demon."

Aqua's blade snapped back into her hand as the creature flew back. It was unfortunate that it could fly once more but it was no matter, really. They would just have to ground it again. "Are you all right, Juste?" He looked pretty shaken. Of course it was probably only to be expected, having just had life drained by their enemy. She quickly trained her eyes back on their target, shifting into an offensive stance once more. If he happened to need a bit more time to recover himself, Aqua could easily grab the incubus' attention herself. She shot several small shots of fire from her blade, and took a few swift steps away from Juste to force the incubus to turn away from him in order to keep track of where the attacks were coming from. Some of her projectiles hit, but they're minor annoyances, nothing particularly damaging. Once she deemed it suitably distracted, she pulled out the big shots once again, sending a powerful Firaga its way, aiming for its wings to bring it back down.

Juste gave Aqua a grateful look as she pulled the incubus' attention off of him. He was still shaking slightly, and his entire body shuddered as he remembered the feel of the creature's lips on his own. That would _not_ being happening again. He wiped at his mouth one more time, determined to wipe away that taste, and then he picked up his cross from where it had fallen by his feet, just as Aqua launched a trio of fireballs at the creature's wings. That seemed like the perfect plan to him.

He raised his hand and a series of fireballs, smaller than the ones that Aqua had used, flew across the room towards the incubus. It saw them coming and dodged to the side, towards Aqua.

Perfect timing, in fact, as she cast Fission Firaga. In dodging Juste's attacks, it was unable to account for Aqua's, and the spell hit it and exploded, disintegrating the rather fragile wing membranes where it hit. It shrieked, an ungodly sound, and with the tattered remains of its wings, it angled its descent toward the closest attacker, Aqua. Anticipating its need to regenerate the wings with a healthy dose of her life force, she warded it off with a painful strike of her keyblade, then vaulted backward, leaving it to skid on the floor.

At any other time, Juste would have laughed at the pathetic sight of the incubus skidding across the floor, but there was no time for humor as he ran across the floor, dodging bits of charred flesh from the creature's destroyed wings as they fluttered down. As soon as he was in range, he sent the Vampire Killer whipping towards the monster's face, and Sara struck true.

The creature screamed as the whip cracked against its cheek, and the skin and bone disintegrated under the hit. It thrashed about on the floor, clutching the ruin of its face, and another whip strike to the forehead finally made it fall silent and go still. The incubus sprawled out across the floor, and complete silence fell in the room as it began to crumble into dust, then turned into leaves and petals and blew away on a sudden breeze, leaving the floor empty.

Aqua resisted the urge to kick it until it faded. How dare it take on Terra's appearance like that! Now that the fight was over, and no longer the focal point of her mind, her anger rose up. It caught her so damn easily! She ought to be better than that, falling for such an obvious trick. It shouldn't have been even mildly believable, and yet...

Juste caught the glint on the floor where the creature had lain, and a few swift steps carried him forward so he could pick it up. He could hear Aqua grumbling to herself, but he ignored her as he quickly fished the other five pieces out of his pocket. Yes, they finally had all six needed to open the door into the courtyard. He quickly began to fit them together, and the pieces joined with a click, though he could see no mechanism to make such a sound, and within a few minutes he had the completed crest in his hands. As Leon, Hector, and Trevor had described, it was the shape of a shield, a little bigger than his hand, with the head of a dragon in the center.

"Save your anger for later, Miss Aqua." he said as he looked up to see her glaring at the spot where the incubus had been. "We finally have what we need to get into the lower area of the courtyard. We can finally learn just what is going on here."

She breathed in for a slow count of five, held it for the same, and then released the breath in a long, smooth exhale, dispelling her anger with it. "All right, let's go. I'm ready to be done with this place."

"I couldn't agree more." Juste said, and he walked across the room, to the door that the incubus had tried to lead Aqua out of. On the other side was the other end of the chapel corridor that they hadn't been able to reach earlier, a warp room, and the staircase up. Opposite the warp room door was another open door, but he ignored that as he approached the staircase. No doubt it led up to the castle keep and the throne room, but he did not sense Dracula's presence. If Dracula was in the castle, he was not in the throne room, at least not yet.

"Let us use the warp room to get back to the castle entrance." he said as he looked up through the hole cut into the ceiling for the stairs. "From there we can -"

A strangled sounding "Erk," from Aqua made him pause, and he turned to see that she had walked past him down the hallway and was staring into the open doorway that he had spotted with wide, horrified eyes.

"Miss Aqua?" he asked as he began to walk towards her. "Are you all right?"

The room beyond the open door was like something out of a Gothic design catalog from back home. Everything was in shades of black, deep purple, and dark red, with an unnecessary amount of smooth curtains lining the walls and the object that had gained Aqua's understandable dread: an enormous, canopied bed, rumpled sheets that were likely silk tucked down invitingly. Like the rest of the room, they were red and black, and the chaise at the foot of the bed was the most garishly red item present.

She shuddered, and then once more, as she connected the exact purpose of this room. She did her best not to gag as she, against her wish, thought of that demon wearing Terra's likeness bringing her here and seducing her while she was biddable and pliable under the demon's spell. She wasn't going to be able to think of Terra for weeks without this coming to mind too. She wanted to go back and kill that incubus all over again for tarnishing her thoughts of her best friend in such a horrible way.

Juste came up to stand behind her, and he paused when he realized what he was looking at. He shuddered and took a deep breath to center himself as he tried not to think of Aqua, or even himself, lying in that bed under that demon's spell. She had been its main target, but it wouldn't have hesitated to go after him if the chance had arisen.

"Miss Aqua." he said quietly wanting to get as far away from from that bedroom as possible, "let's head to the warp room. From there we can warp to the castle entrance and walk to the courtyard from there."

She took a deep breath, in the manner of someone coming up for air after being underwater. She blinked and tore her line of sight away from the room. It sickened her so deeply. She felt equally that she wanted to be away from it now.

When she felt she could steady her voice, she answered him. "Sounds like a good idea. Whatever's coming, I want to have all my magic at my disposal." Who knew exactly what they would face in the end, now that they're nearly there? So far it had been only threats related to this world, but something from hers had brought her here. She had no idea what they would be up against, and chances were she would need her best spells available. She had ethers and potions stocked in her pockets, but it was only logical to go in as fully rested as they could.

Juste didn't say anything further as he made straight for the warp room. He stepped onto the pad and turned back to Aqua as the magic stirred his hair.

"When you go to warp out," he told her, "make sure you tell the warp room which room to send you to. Think of the one in the living quarters that we found earlier. It's close to the hole in the floor that drops down into the entrance. Sometimes you can pick your destination, sometimes you can't. Let's hope this one is one of the former. If I successfully warp out, then you'll know that you can." He waited for her understanding nod, and then he closed his eyes and willed the magic of the room to send him to where he asked.

Thankfully, it turned out to be one of those where the destination waypoint could be chosen, and when he opened his eyes, Aqua was nowhere to be seen. He then stepped off the platform, and waited for her to appear.

She had used similar transports in the past, so it wasn't particularly difficult for her to step onto it, visualize the correct destination, and activated its magic. When she blinked out at her new destination, Juste stood nearby, and she hopped down gracefully. She gestured for him to lead on. She had a fairly good map of the castle in her mind, but ultimately, Juste was still the more experienced of the two in this world's mechanisms.

Juste gave her a quick nod, and then he turned to the doors leading out. Hopefully, whatever it was that was in the darkness enshrouded courtyard would tell them what was going on in the castle, and he secretly secretly hoped that, just this once, it wasn't Dracula. It was a futile hope, he knew. Even if it wasn't Dracula, as Death had said earlier, once the intruder was dealt with, Dracula would retake control of his castle, and they would have to deal with him anyway.

All of that was stricken from his mind when he opened the doors. Ahead of them was the hallway that they had first gone down after entering the living quarters hours before, as well as the staircase they had taken up, but something had changed since they had last been there.

Flowering vines had climbed up the walls, spread across parts of the floor, and were slowly inching across the ceiling. Juste looked around, but he couldn't tell where they had come from, or even why they seemed to be thriving indoors.

"This is strange." he muttered to himself as they went down towards the hatch that would drop them into the castle entrance.

"The vines? I notice they're new," Aqua remarked. "Usually plants don't grow this fast. Let alone in such an unsuitable area. There's no soil or sunlight in these halls."

Juste shook his head slightly, while still keeping his eyes on the hallway turned garden in front of him. "No," he said, "Dracula's castle occasionally contains a garden, but it never spreads beyond its own area, and the only plants you'll see outside of it are the Unes and Alura Unes. This... this is not them. I don't sense anything either, so whatever this is, it's not some kind of creature we've never seen before. I have no idea what is causing this."

"Perhaps, then, it's related to what brought me, and the Heartless, here? I'm not sure, but if this isn't typical of your world, that's the only explanation I can think of."

"It makes me wonder what kinds of things you deal with out there." he said as he began to walk forward while resisting the urge to use his coat to cover his nose. The stench was starting to give him a headache.

"All sorts. But in this case I think it may be related to affinity," she replied as she followed him. "Some worlds and people are naturally aligned towards certain elements. Water, fire, perhaps plants in this case. So the magic of the world or person would be stronger with those favored elements, and usually that also reveals specific weaknesses as well. Obviously someone who is a powerful fire magic user would be weakened if doused in a wave of water. I'm sure that's obvious to you. But I say this because there are those who have an affinity for plants and related earth or life magic. There was one such being I know of, but never faced myself. He was taken down by a hero far greater than me. We had seen no sign of him since, however, so I'm hesitant to claim this to be his work. Surely there are others with similar powers. But it does seem like his sort of magic," she explained, eyeing the vines worriedly as they entered their territory.

Juste nodded as they reached the small alcove that had the opening that would allow them to drop down into the entrance. Through the opening, he could see that more plants had started to take over the entrance hall, though the floor was still mostly clear. "Anything in particular we would need to know if it was this person waiting for us in that courtyard?"

"I... Well, admittedly, I was a bit remiss in reading some of the files of past enemies," she said with a wince. "I remember that this man's name as a Nobody was Marluxia, that he wielded a scythe far more quickly than anyone ought to be able to, so he was likely quite physically strong despite a somewhat feminine appearance, or so it was described. And as already stated, he was quite strong in plant magic, though he possessed abilities unrelated to plants as well. I'm sorry; that's all I can remember at the moment. He was the master of a castle as well, however, so don't underestimate him. He was quite a challenge for the one who eventually defeated him."

My castle, at that, she thought. My home. I certainly haven't forgotten about that.

Wonderful, Juste thought as he hopped down through the open hatch and down on the floor of the castle entrnace. That is all we need.

"I admit," he said once Aqua had joined him, "that the idea of such a person being here worries me, especially when one adds Dracula to the equation." They started off towards the sanctuary a few rooms ahead, and he continued as they walked, killing the occasional zombie that appeared as they went. "Something attracted those creatures we saw outside the castle here, just as something gave Dracula and the castle the power to appear so soon. It's a frightening thought that a single person would be capable of all of that."

"If a person bears enough darkness within them, more darkness will be attracted to them, and if they possess a strong will, they will be able to control beings within the darkness rather than be overwhelmed by them. It's a rare person that can utilize the darkness without it overtaking them, however. More frequently someone like that will fall to it, and they will be lost. Then it's almost as though you're not facing that person at all anymore, but a puppet of the darkness bearing their face."

She shook her head, dispelling images of Xehanort in her best friend's body. That man... She knew it was not the sort of feeling that someone of the Light, especially a Keyblade Master, should have, but she never would forgive him for what he'd done to her friends, to her world, to so many worlds and so many people. That he had been permanently destroyed a few years ago made no difference. His death alone would not earn her clemency. Still, those thoughts would do her no good here. She couldn't be focused on the past with an important mission right here before her. "The power of darkness is seductive in its apparent strength. Those who have fallen to it have been capable of destroying entire worlds. I'm here to ensure that doesn't happen."

Juste made note of the mention of "entire worlds" but chose not to comment on it. As frequently as she mentioned it, as well as so many other things, had a small part of him wondering... as impossible as it should be... He shook his head. "Such was Dracula's fate. He reached out to the darkness to get revenge on God and later, on humanity, and now nothing remains of the noble man that was once Mathias Cronqvist."

They stepped through the door and into the room where they had fought the giant skeleton in what felt like days ago, and they both paused suddenly. "Heartless," Aqua confirmed, just before several of the creatures appeared before them. A duo of Red Roses appeared on either side of the hall, blocking their progress, and a single Defender sat in the middle, with a Fire Plant at its back. Larger shadows than they had yet seen in the castle rose up into Heartless that looked like an older relative of the basic Shadows with long limbs and antennae: Neoshadows.

Aqua cursed under her breath. "Okay, here's the deal," she rattled off rapidly. "That Defender in the middle is going to be a major pain, as the shield makes it impossible to hit from the front and I'm not convinced your whip will be very effective against its armor even at the back, so let me focus on that. The Neoshadows are much nastier than regular Shadows, their claws hurt, so watch out for them and try to keep out of their reach. The Fire Plant will be annoying but it isn't all that powerful so you can try to ignore the fireballs it tosses at you. The Roses probably won't move so leave them last."

"Alright," Juste replied, "How about I deal with the Neoshadows while you worry about the Defender? Then we can deal with the others once the major threats are dealt with."

As far as she's concerned, that was basically what she'd said. "Yes." And then she darted away, skating past the Neoshadows, which sank into the ground in her wake, to skid behind the Defender, which she then began raining blows upon until it swiveled to face her and blocked her with its shield. She then had to pop up a barrier of her own to defend against first a fireball from the Fire Plant she was now directly in straight view of, and then immediately following, a heavy counterstrike from the Defender.

Juste didn't have to move towards the nearest Neoshadow; it moved towards him, crossing the distance in a single bound with its powerful legs. He jumped right into the swing of the whip, which caught it on the top of its head. He ducked and rolled to avoid seeds shot by one of the roses, and then he cast Holy Lightning. The plants made little pained sounds under the spell's power, but the Neoshadows didn't even flinch. He skipped back several steps to clear some breathing room between himself and them before lashing out with the whip again. The Neoshadow staggered under the second blow, and he dashed in quickly and landed a final hit, before a group of fireballs from one of the plants forced him to back away.

Aqua didn't have room to worry about Juste's battle progress, as she was very consumed with making sure the Defender didn't get the chance to hit her. One blow from this thing, especially if made with the shield, could easily break just about any bone in her body. The dog's head on the shield opened its jaws and sprayed a cone of Blizzard, which Aqua had to cartwheel out of the way to avoid. Aqua flipped once more to get behind the shield and coated her blade in electricity as she slammed Stormfall into its shield arm, hoping against hope that she might be able to stun it enough to make it drop its shield, because without it a Defender is quite vulnerable. Its shield really does almost all of its attacks for it, even though the Heartless itself is technically wielding it.

Juste ducked and rolled under the claws of another Neoshadow as it swiped at him, and he swung the Vampire Killer as soon as he regained his feet. The horizontal swing caught the remaining two across their chests, but it barely slowed them down. He dashed to the left to get some clearance; as long as he had two of them, he couldn't afford to get too close. Once he had it down to just one, then he could mix things up a bit more. He cast Ice Needle, and as it spewed shards of ice at them, he used that chance to get some more distance from them. He followed that up with a Stardust spell aimed at the close one, and it exploded into wisps, which left him with only one remaining.

As Aqua expected, her attack didn't cause the Defender to drop its shield, but it did stun it. So she used that to her advantage to land a few really good hits on it while it was paralyzed. She heard the whoosh of a fireball being thrown at her from the Fire Plant behind her, and dodged left, causing the flame to hit the Defender instead. While it didn't do much, it still pleased her somewhat.

The Defender regained mobility and swung its shield in a wide arc around it, attempting to knock back its foe. However, Aqua leapt back out of range and cast Thundaga, striking all enemies in a radius around her for fierce damage. All the plant Heartless took a good hit, and the Defender in front of her at the epicenter of her spell even more so. She thought it seemed like it was slowing a bit more than before. Good, then a few more strikes will do it!

With only one Neoshadow to worry about now, Juste cast a spell he hadn't used up to this point; Seven Saints. Seven little crosses began whirling around acting as a shield and damaging anything they touched. To his surprise, the Heartless did recoil from the spell, even though his previous one hadn't seemed to bother it, but he didn't question it. The spell was Holy elemental, and the Heartless were creatures born of Darkness.

He pressed the advantage, using the slowly weakening spell to keep the Neoshadow from getting into striking range. Attacks from the plants also weakened the spell, but he could ignore that for now. The Vampire Killer could strike through the spell without interrupting it, and he exploited that ruthlessly, landing blow and blow on the hapless creature as it tried to get him with its claws. Its attempts were futile though, and soon enough it exploded into wisps just as the previous two had.

Aqua rounded the shield-wielding Heartless once again, and it now completely masked her from the Fire Plant, though not for long if she had her way. She wreathed her blade in electricity once more and brought her blade down against the Defender's armored back like a bludgeon, as she finally chipped away the last of its health. It poofed into shadow and released a large heart that floated upward and disappeared as usual. Aqua then shot a large chunk of ice at the Fire Plant, the opposing elemental damage strong enough to destroy it too. Meanwhile, the Red Roses watched on from the sidelines with almost cheerful looks on their flowery faces.

Juste saw the Fire Plant die under the force of Aqua's fire magic, which left only the roses. He didn't hesitate.

"Hydro Storm!"  
The holy rain poured down on the roses, making them writhe and make sounds of pain as they wilted. Juste actually felt a little sympathy for them as they went up in flames and died.

Aqua, caught right in the middle of the hallway, knew she was well within the area zone of that spell, and the moment she heard the first part of the name, she threw up a barrier as fast as she could. _I am not getting soaked again right now, thank you!_

As soon as the spell ended, Juste dropped to the floor and turned to Aqua. "Let's hurry. I want to get some answers."

She nodded, a little tired. Whaling on an enemy was not her preferred method of handling Heartless, but with the Defenders, who are protected from a lot of magic by their armor, it was often the fastest way of taking them down.

"No argument here. Let's keep moving."

It was a short walk out of the room and into the spiral staircase. Inside, like the corridor they had just left, it was being overrun by plant life that hadn't been there before. They didn't say a word as they entered the sanctuary.

Juste touched the statue before he sat down on the grass and pulled out some beef jerky and a bottle of water. He was rather hungry, but he didn't want to eat a full meal before a large battle. And he was certain that one was waiting for them in the courtyard. If Aqua was correct, and it was someone from her home, then he was dealing with something he knew nothing about, other than what Aqua had told him. Still, he couldn't help but shake the feeling that Dracula was involved somehow. He always was.

Aqua retrieved another apple and some of her bread from her pocket as she took a seat against the statue. The sugar was especially helpful in restoring health and magic, and the bread would help keep her feeling a bit more sated. Like Juste, she knew it wasn't a great idea to go into a big or brutal fight with a full stomach to slow one down. "There were even more plants outside than before. It seems like our enemy really is gaining more control rather quickly."

Juste finished off his jerky and pulled out another piece. "There are two possibilities here. Either our enemy is truly that powerful and is slowly overpowering the castle, or something within the castle is feeding them power, and it's ending with the same result. Either way, I'm not looking forward to what is waiting for us above."

She offered him some of her bread to give him more than just dried meat, but not something so big as one of his wife's meals kept in stasis. "Well, if it does happen to be Marluxia, the good news is that he's primarily a close range fighter, and therefore can only really focus on one of us at a time, so the other will be free to spell cast at a distance. Sadly for me, I would guess that I'll be the one he focuses on given that I'm a keyblade wielder like the one that killed him the first time around."

Juste accepted the bread with a smile and made short work of it as Aqua talked. "If that were to happen, he'll learn quickly that he ignores me at his own peril. Even if it is this Marluxia that you speak of, it's truly not him that worries me. It's whatever allowed him to take control of this castle that frightens me."

He stood up and brushed the crumbs from his hands and clothing. "We should get ready."

He didn't wait for an answer. Instead he began to sort through his pockets, checking his potion count, moving empty vials to other places to prevent them from being grabbed in an emergency, and generally ensuring that everything was ready to go.

She had to admit, he probably had a point about who the real threat might be. Aqua didn't know this world, so her evaluation of danger could well be biased. She disposed of the apple core as she had before and did a quick check of her own inventory. She had a few potions (She typically preferred Cure for healing) and enough ethers to last her in a pinch, and she suspected that she would definitely be abusing the latter supply. It was a good thing she'd stocked up before coming.

Juste looked at her, and she nodded to show that she was ready. He nodded himself, and then he led the way out of the sanctuary. It was a short trip up the spiraling stairs to the barred doors, and the magic of the seal flickered across his skin as he pulled the shield out of a pocket and pressed it into the indent where the doors met.

The magic over the door wavered and then collapsed with the sound of breaking glass. Shards of the wards that had held the door closed drifted down to the floor, and their was a rumbling sound as the bars that ran across began to retract into the frame. The vibrations reverberated under their feet for several seconds before stopping.

And then with a click, the door opened.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"Well, that was suitably impressive," Aqua muttered, and peered into the area ahead. It was a large space, a courtyard of some sort no doubt. Once perhaps it had been neatly maintained, but now the entire space was covered in sprawling vines and thousands of flowers in full bloom regardless of the season. That would certainly make for interesting footing for the oncoming battle. They would have to be careful not to catch their feet on the vines. Aqua summoned her blade to ensure she'd be ready for whatever was coming.

As they cautiously picked their way into the garden, a voice across the yard addressed them. "Well, well. I should have known it would be a wielder forcing their way through to reach me. You're an unfamiliar face, however. As is your friend. But I can see he's not like you." The owner of the voice stepped into the light, and Aqua knew him at once. As she had suspected, their enemy was indeed Lauriam.

Sara crackled in anger and anticipation as the darkness filling the courtyard continued to thin, allowing Juste to see the owner of the voice.

His first thought was that it was a very tall, very muscular woman, despite the deep tone of the voice, but the body structure under the form fitting black leather coat and black trousers quickly informed him that it was a very feminine man instead. A man with a face that many women would sell their soul to have, blue eyes that put his own to shame, and... pink hair?

He resisted the urge to laugh at the absurdity of it all, but the power rolling around the courtyard was centered on the owner of said pink hair. A quick glance at Aqua's face told him what he needed to know.

"You must be Marluxia." he said evenly.

"I was, once," the man agreed. "But I am no longer merely that weak husk. My true name is Lauriam. But it is no matter," he dismissed with a careless wave of his hand. "I don't know who you are, and I don't particularly care. All that matters is that you both have been disrupting my plans, but it ends now. I'm more powerful than I was the first time when I was defeated by that brat. It won't happen again, I assure you. The two of you will die, and I will continue as though nothing had interrupted me."

"You should care," Aqua stated, leveling him with a hard stare. "You might be more powerful, but so am I. Sora was a child when he defeated you the first time. I'm a Keyblade Master, and far stronger than he had been back then. You're not going to succeed here. I will give you one chance to step down and return to Radiant Garden with me. If you withdraw, we'll pretend this never happened and you can be judged solely on your past crimes. But if you refuse, I have no choice but to take you down. This time you won't come back."

He smirked. "Not going to happen, little girl."

Seriously? She was a full-grown woman, how dare he refer to her that way! She had been to hell and back again, and dealt with more difficulty than he ever had; no way was she anything remotely resembling a child now. She glared and her hand tightened around her blade's hilt.

Juste kept his gaze fixed on Marluxia, or rather, Lauriam, as the man talked to Aqua. Something about this was very wrong. Lauriam's soul was a dim, rather pathetic looking thing that appeared to be struggling to keep itself alight. A weak soul would have never been able to resurrect the castle, regardless of how much power the owner possessed. That meant only one possible thing...

"Are you truly Lauriam?" he asked. "Or am I speaking to Dracula?"

Lauriam merely chuckled. "I am myself, fully complete, with my heart, body, and soul. Now it is only polite that you give me your name, since you know mine."

"You know who I am; I am certain that Dracula has told you."

Lauriam's eyes narrowed. "He has told me nothing."

"But you admit that he is there?"

Lauriam's blue eyes flashed a bright, glowing red for a brief second, and Juste heard Aqua gasp quietly to his left.

Dear stars, another possession. Haven't I dealt with that enough by now? Terra was the worst experience she'd ever had the misfortune to be faced with, but Ven's possession was just as heart-wrenching. Then after being rescued from the Realm of Darkness, she had helped the other bearers of Light face Xehanort's corrupted, possessed Thirteen. Would it ever end?

"Present, yes. But that is insignificant, for his power is mine now. I have control. I have spent too much time in my life struggling for power to let an undead spirit take it from me now that I have it," Lauriam snapped.

"You have his power," Juste said without taking his eyes away from Lauriam, "because Dracula allows it. You may be using it for now, but he'll take it back soon enough. You never should have let him in."

Aqua wanted to question him on that, to ask him if he was sure, given that Marluxia – Lauriam - was no pushover, but she dared not do so right now. They would find out one way or the other anyway.

"Not going to happen," the man repeated. "His power is mine, and it's going to stay mine. Let me prove it to you by killing you both now."

Juste shook his head sadly. "You fool. You've been doomed from the instant you let Dracula into your soul." He stepped back as the swirling power around Lauriam grew in intensity. The light in the area seemed to dim, dust sifted down from the walls, and the plants nearest to him withered and died.

"It feels strange to be asking you this for once," Juste murmured to Aqua, "but anything I should watch out for?"

"I...I'm not sure," she replied a little shakily. "If he really is possessed, he may have a whole host of other powers I have no knowledge about. All I know about are the use of a scythe and plant magic, as I already told you before. Keep an eye out for the vines rising up to trip you or grab hold of you. Though I wonder if he might not have as strong a grasp on his usual magic as he should. I doubt he would deliberately choose to let the plants directly around him die off like that."

"That would be Dracula's influence, no doubt. He cares nothing for his pawns or their feelings, and Lauriam has nowhere near the control he thinks he does." He kept his gaze on the pinked haired man as he held one of his arms up in the air, and a scythe appeared in his hand. "Miss Aqua, is he really going to attack us with what amounts to a giant flower?"

"Don't let the appearance fool you. According to Sora, the one who killed him before, he's shockingly fast, and that scythe is very sharp. Try not to let it touch you. I don't know if we could recover from having our entrails ripped out," she remarked flatly.

Juste just stopped himself from saying something about dead people not wanting to stay dead, and it was just as well, as Lauriam seemed to vanish from where he had been standing, leaving a few red flower petals in his place, and reappeared right in front of him. Juste dropped to the ground, and he could hear the sound of the blade cutting the air as the scythe sliced through the air where he had been standing.

Aqua leapt back the moment she saw Lauriam appear nearer to them, avoiding the blade and gaining some distance from Juste. Lauriam was primarily a close range fighter, and if they were in different areas, he'd have to pick one of them to focus on, leaving the other to do as they pleased. She moved to dart back into range to strike at him herself, but it was a fruitless endeavor, as he flashed out of sight only to appear behind her, already sweeping the scythe towards her. It was pure luck that she managed to throw her barrier up in time. The scythe rebounded off her shield, and she immediately took the opportunity to counterattack, but Lauriam blocked her strike easily. He's so damn fast! she thought frantically. They're going to have to up their own game swiftly.

Dear Lord, Juste thought as he scrambled to his feet. He had never expected anything like this! How much of this man's speed was his own power, and how much of it was Dracula? Going head to head such a person while using only a whip would be suicide. He'd have to trust that Aqua could handle herself, while he used magic from further away. Hopefully, between the two of them, they could keep him off balance.

As Lauriam blocked Aqua's counter, Juste called up his magic and sent a few smaller fireballs his way to hopefully act as a distraction. The fire impacted against Laurium's head, but he only turned to Juste with an annoyed expression.

"Tch. You burned my hair. How distasteful." Lauriam drew upon his magic, casting three great circles of darkness and thorns in the courtyard to shred anyone who might get too close to them. He could stand in the middle of them and receive no injury, but his foes weren't so lucky. Aqua was forced to jump back, away from him, and managed to fire off a solid Triple Blizzaga, which he dodged with ease given his speed, and flew at her, whirling his scythe around him so quickly it was difficult to follow. In her haste to avoid the blade, she stumbled into one of the rings, having temporarily forgotten them with her preoccupation with the greater threat of being sliced to ribbons by Lauriam himself. The thorns tore at her, ripping small holes in her clothes and bloodying her skin. She swiftly removed herself from the area of effect, and pushed the smarting of the superficial wounds to the back of her mind as she focused on Lauriam again.

Juste found himself staring mutely at the dark circles on the floor, at the thorny vines spinning around them. He saw Aqua jump back, bloody scratches marring her skin. So this man was truly a plant elemental of some kind. Well, one thing that all plants hated was fire, so...

Two pinwheels formed of white hot flame went skidding across the courtyard towards Lauriam. He merely looked at them and sneered, perhaps thinking that they were the same spell as before and that Dracula's power would shield him. He was soon proven wrong.

The whirling flames smashed into the vines that swirled around Lauriam, acting as a shield, and they promptly went up in flames themselves. From within them, Lauriam could be heard cursing, and he dropped his shield and stopped his attack as he vanished with another cloud of flower petals. Juste didn't think, he just dropped and rolled, and none too soon, as Lauriam reappeared where had been only seconds before.

"I despise fire elementals." Lauriam said with eyes bright, and Juste suddenly found himself surrounded by vines that formed a cage around him. They were too close to set on fire, and when he drew one of his daggers and tried to cut his way out, the blade bounced off like he had hit a solid wall. So that left only one option. He ran.

"Oh you do, do you?" Aqua murmured. That gave her an idea. The longer this drew out, the more tired the two of them would be, whereas who knew what Dracula's power might do for Lauriam. Right now, Lauriam was focused on Juste, which meant he wasn't paying her much attention. But she couldn't let Juste get caught in the blast either, because it might well hurt him just as much or more. She ran in his direction, much easier now that Juste's attack had disrupted his area effect and the circles vanished. The vine cage around Juste paused while he continued running himself and exploded behind him, at which point Aqua arrived just close enough to him that he would be unlikely to get caught in the blast, but Lauriam would. She came to an abrupt halt, pointed her keyblade in Lauriam's direction, and cast Mega Flare. Her vision blanked out for a few moments in the sheer bright white of the blast.

Aqua's "Fire!" was the only warning he had before a wave of heat exploded behind him and sent him stumbling for a few steps. He turned around just as the enormous fireball that Aqua had launched at Lauriam began to fade. The vines, flowers, and trees nearest him were gone, burned away, and the flagstones were cracked and blackened from the heat. Lauriam appeared to be stunned.

"You need to teach me that." he said in a shocked whisper, before he ran forward. He sent the Vampire Killer swinging in a wide arc in front of him, and it caught Lauriam just as he began to come out of his daze. The unexpected hit made him stumble to his right a bit, and it opened large tears in the leather of his coat and drew blood. Lauriam snarled and brought down his scythe, obviously intending to cut the whip in half, but Juste jumped back and pulled the whip back with him, causing the swing to miss entirely. He quickly cast Magic Missile, and used the distraction to move away.

Aqua wasted no time trading places, taking back up on close combat with Lauriam as the man used his scythe to catch Juste's spell since it followed when he attempted to dodge. She didn't wait for him to be ready before she attacked once again. He blocked her anyway, and immediately struck in return, moving faster than she could. She threw up a barrier, but that prevented her from countering. Then the moment the barrier fell in order for her to attack, Lauriam utilized his strength to redirect his scythe to slash at her faster, and it caught her dominant arm, slicing a long cut down her forearm. She dropped her keyblade and cartwheeled quickly back, possible given that she didn't need her main arm for that. She attempted to cast Cure as soon as she could, as the score bled copiously, but Lauriam flashed behind her and slammed the tail end of his scythe into her side, interrupting her and sending her tumbling across the ground. He pursued, and raised his scythe above his head to send it ferociously down into her form. She used all of her strength to fling herself aside, but it still cut into her side as she was a bit too slow. She cried out and curled around the wound protectively, summoning her blade into her off hand, just to provide herself some measure of protection until Juste could get him off of her.

Juste summoned a block of ice, which came streaking down from the sky above and smashed into the back of Lauriam's head. Any other man, and he would have assumed that the hit killed him instantly, but this was a Dracula possession that they were dealing with. As it was, Lauriam was knocked forward, face down onto the ground, but he was quickly back on his feet, despite the copious amounts of blood staining his hair. He summoned his scythe to him, but he did not move. Instead Juste felt almost like a lurch in the flow of energy through the castle, and several Alura Une vines erupted in circular patterns from the floor throughout the courtyard

A quick count of the them revealed eight of the creatures, and Juste was forced to throw himself to the ground as they started flinging barbs at him. A quick glance to his right showed Aqua slowly moving away from where she had fallen. She would never be able to dodge them.

Juste hung the Vampire Killer from his belt and jumped back as far away from the Alura Unes and Lauriam as he could. Summoning was tiring, but their need was dire. He ignored Lauriam striding towards him, scythe raised as Juste pulled hard on his magic, dragging as much of it up as he could.

"Come!"

There was a screech, and Lauriam paused and looked up. Juste ignored him. Instead with the summoning done, he ran on shaking legs over to Aqua and stood over her while she cast her healing spells on herself. The Alura Unes turned to them, but the screech repeated, and a massive bird appeared over the courtyard. Its wingspan was wider than he was tall, flames licked the tips of its gold and red plumage, and its yellow eyes burned with intensity as it regarded its summoner for a brief second. Its gaze then moved to Aqua, who was getting to her feet, and Juste nodded at it. The it screeched again, and fire began to rain down from the sky with every beat of its wings.

Aqua yanked an ether from her pocket and downed it in rapid gulps, having exhausted her magic with the Mega Flare and dual Curagas she'd had to cast. She couldn't help pausing for a moment afterward to stare at the immense phoenix in the courtyard. "You summoned that?" she gaped. It was honestly beautiful, even as it hailed destruction on the flower monsters below it. She didn't know whether the fire would hurt her or not, so she chose to hang back and wait for it to finish its work.

Lauriam snarled and teleported out of the field, plastering himself against the wall on the outer edge of the courtyard to avoid the flames. The Alura Unes were unable to move far from their place, however, and were slowly consumed by fire, screeching in agony as they burned.

Juste fished a Mind Up from one of his pockets and downed it. His magic levels quickly rose to normal, and the shaking stopped Lauriam was huddled under an overhang, unable to come out until the Phoenix summon ran its course. He reached down and gripped one of his daggers.

"Cover me, if you would, Miss Aqua?" he said. He pulled the dagger out, and pulled hard against his magic.

"1000 Blades!"

He had just enough time to catch a startled look on Lauriam's face before Juste hurled the silver dagger at him, followed by another, and another, and another. He conjured them as fast as his power would allow, and flung them with both arms at his target. The first several caught Lauriam by surprise. One caught him in the arm, a second hit his shoulder, two slammed into his gut, and another caught him in the left leg, just above the knee.

Lauriam howled and moved away from the barrage of knives as quickly as his injured leg would allow, but Juste pivoted in place and kept on him. Most of the blades missed, but enough had landed true by the time the spell ran its course.

As soon as he got a break, Lauriam summoned one of the maids the two had faced elsewhere in the castle as his eyes flashed red once again. He grabbed the maid and bit into her neck, hands pinning her in place. Burns and knife wounds began to close up and heal over as he drank her blood.

Aqua stared in horror for a long moment. She couldn't believe this was happening. She had never actually seen anything vampiric attack someone before, and it was terrible. She shook herself suddenly, regaining her mind, and shot a fireball at him to make him stop.

Lauriam withdrew at the sound of the spell, and threw the drained maid into its path. She whimpered, lacking the strength to do anything more, as the flames engulfed her.

Juste darted off to the side to get some distance between himself and Aqua. He quickly drank down another Mind Up, and as soon as the man stepped out from under the overhang, he cast Hydro Storm.

He was unprepared for the scream that the possessed man made as the holy water poured down on him, burning holes in his skin and clothing. Smoke rose from his wounds.

"Dracula is gaining control!" he called to Aqua as the spell ran out. "We have to end this quickly!"

Aqua observed the damage Hydro Storm had caused to Lauriam, eyes widened at the sight. The spell affected him like acid rain. Was that what holy water does to a vampire? She really hated possession. She raced out onto the field, the storm doing nothing to hurt her. They couldn't afford to give Lauriam a break, so she fired off a Thundaga Shot, and although Lauriam dodged, he was still too close to where it hit the wall behind him, and it zapped him anyway, the effect multiplied by his wet state.

Juste was right on her heels. The effects of the Hydro Storm told him all that he needed to know. He ran across the burned and broken flagstones, across the withered plant life, and he sent the Vampire Killer out to wrap around Lauriam's right wrist. Lauriam howled in pain as his wrist smoked and burned, and he was forced to drop his scythe to try and free himself, and the weapon vanished as soon as it hit the ground.

Juste pulled on the whip, which brought Lauriam stumbling towards him. He then released the man's wrist and sent Sara flying forward to crack solidly over Lauriam's heart just as he pulled a holy water out and threw it at the man's feet. Flames erupted on the ground and quickly climbed up Lauriam's clothing, and Juste jumped back as the flames seemed to consume him.

When the fire died, Lauriam was lying huddled on the ground. His clothing and hair had been destroyed in the holy fire that had covered him. His skin was mostly gone, and he was making little gasps and choking noises.

"You're finished, Lauriam." Juste said quietly.

There was a pained nose, and Juste stepped back a step when the burned body began to spasm, but a second later, Lauriam started to chuckle. Quiet at first, but then soon it increased to a high pitched laugh that echoed off the walls and floor of the courtyard.

"No," came Lauriam's voice, sounding shocked and horrified, "You swore that you would make me immortal."

"No," Juste whispered as he realized. He went back several more steps and pulled Aqua back with him. The burns began healing, leaving smooth, too pale skin in their wake.

"So I did, child." came a second voice, deeper and with a slower, more even cadence. "Your body is immortal. _You_ , however, I no longer have need of."

"No!" Lauriam shrieked. "You were supposed to grant me the power to defeat my enemies!"

"And I will do so. After I am finished with this world, then I will move on to the next. And the next. And the next! God's universe will fall before me!"

Lauriam – no, Dracula – began to stand up.

Aqua couldn't help a shudder. It was incredibly creepy to hear two entirely different vocal tones coming from Lauriam's mouth. But it seemed that it wasn't really Lauriam anymore. The man before them had Lauriam's build, but the skin and eyes were the wrong colors. Aqua kept her gaze pinned to him, incredibly wary and trying to repress flashbacks of finding Terra with the wrong color palette, and knowing someone else had taken control of him.

Juste ran forward, magic on his fingertips and the Vampire Killer already in mid-swing, but he suddenly bounced off of a solid surface, and he found himself being flung backwards, away from Dracula. He landed on the flagstones with the snap of a breaking bone in his leg, and the impact forced all the air from his lungs.

He felt one of Aqua's healing spells wash over him, mending his leg, and he hauled himself to his feet to see Death hovering in front of Dracula, holding his own scythe to block them from getting any closer.

"You shall not harm Lord Dracula."

"But that is Lauriam's body. Didn't you ask us to get rid of him? Isn't he still part of him?" Aqua protested, keeping well away to avoid being attacked.

"I did, and you have." Death replied, his voice echoing on the still air. "What remained of Lauriam Fiore is gone, smothered by the darkness within him, consumed to resurrect Lord Dracula at full strength."

 _...Smothered by the darkness within him._ Aqua shuddered hard at the exact wording Death used, identical to the phrase Xehanort had used to taunt her in Terra's body, her face paling as memories threatened to overtake her. She clenched her free hand hard, digging her nails into her palm as she strove to remain calm and in the present. Losing himself to the darkness was likely Lauriam's fate, but to have been forced to die by an interloper in his body...it's just wrong. Possession was the worst sort of violation a person could suffer. She may not have liked Lauriam, he may have been their enemy and she was here to destroy him, but...not like this. This was not how it should have happened.

Juste put his hand on Aqua's shoulder as she seethed. He needed her to keep her head. They couldn't afford to get into a battle now.

"I see a Belmont has already arrived." The sound of Dracula's voice made Juste shiver. He'd never heard it before. He'd broken Maxim's possession before Dracula could take full control, and the wraith he'd faced afterward had never spoken. He wondered in the back of his mind if Dracula would remember him.

"How long has it been?" Dracula said casually. "A new Belmont, here in my castle, though you smell similar to dear Simon. 'Tis a shame my curse was not able to finish him off."

"A shame for you perhaps." Juste said as he tightened his grip on the Vampire Killer.

Dracula chuckled, and the sound seemed so wrong coming from Lauriam's colorless lips. "Indeed. Leon's descendants have proven rather difficult to kill. Still, you are here. What shall I do with you?"

He looked at them for a moment, seeming to be thinking about something. "Such strange power Lauriam had. 'Twas a shame that he didn't use it to its full potential." He looked at them, red eyes glowing. "Let us rectify his mistake."

Juste rocked back in shock when the courtyard was abruptly plunged into total darkness. Ahead of him came the sound of Dracula's laughter, followed by the sounds of dozens of bats, and his presence vanished from the courtyard. Death quickly followed.

Tiny claws raked across his leg, and Juste lashed out and felt his foot connect with a small, cold form.

He grabbed his cross and held it up high and cast Grand Cross, and the glow allowed him to see that the ground around him was tightly packed with Heartless of all kinds. He could not see Aqua, but as he dropped to the ground as the spell ended, he could hear her calling her attacks and see flashes of spellfire.

She knew the sensation indicative of Heartless, and so started attacking the moment she felt them summoned to the courtyard. She had been in the Realm of Darkness for years. This was nearly normal to her, and she saw the Heartless around her with clarity against the backdrop of black. There were so many of them! Clearly Dracula's power was vaster than that of Lauriam. Probably because the castle wasn't fighting against him. She leapt back twice to gain some distance, then channeled Meteor Shower, targeting the horde of enemies and shooting liberal magic missiles at them, a storm of shooting stars.

Juste jumped into the air and cast Hydro Storm to try and clear some breathing room. The weaker Heartless withered and died under the spell, while the stronger ones merely flinched back away from him. It was enough space to work in when he dropped back down to the ground and swung the Vampire Killer out in front of him, clearing a bit more space. He cast Stardust, and the magic rained down on the creatures, killing several more.

Aqua knew they needed to clear the miasma of darkness around them, but the spell they needed was one she didn't know. But she knew who did, so she reached out with her heart, forging a D-link connection with King Mickey. With his help, she cast Sign of Faith, and a tornado of light formed in the center of the Heartless mass. It swept up a dozen Heartless in its path, and then a beam of light shot through the center. Not only did it kill the Heartless within it, but the light broke through the curse of darkness, banishing it, revealing the courtyard and remaining Heartless once more.

"Thank you, Miss Aqua." Juste murmured as the darkness lifted. The flagstones were still covered in a teeming mass of Heartless, but at least he could see. He threw a vial of holy water on the ground in front of him, and it cleared a path that allowed him to edge closer to Aqua. She saw him coming and did the same, and quickly they were standing nearly back to back, surrounded by Heartless.

Aqua formed the thought of Firaga Burst in her mind, and shot the spell straight up above them.

Juste saw the spell being cast, and he cast his own Holy Fire. He didn't flinch at the flash this time, and when it cleared, Aqua was standing with her weapon pointed in the air, a large meteor spinning above it. Pinwheels of flame were flying off of it, and they went spinning across the ground, bouncing off of the walls, and they exploded whenever they found a target. He continued to send magic into the spell to maintain it until Aqua released it on her end.

The Heartless around them had been cleared out, leaving only clusters of them on the fringes.

"Shall we get this over with, Miss Aqua?" Juste said as he watched the shuffling horde slowly creep towards them.

"Of course." She didn't bother approaching them this time, just sent volleys of magic at them until the stragglers drew close enough, at which point she quickly dispatched those nearest to her with a few swipes of her blade.

Juste sent a wave of ice flowing across the ground, clearing another path for himself. He then moved in close to better use his whip. It didn't take long for them to finish clearing the courtyard, and when the last Heartless disintegrated under Sara's power, they turned to each other, nodded, and then they turned and walked out of the courtyard.

 **OOOOOO**

They needed to recover a bit before tracking Dracula down, so Aqua let Juste lead them to a Sanctuary for a respite. Her healed injuries ached, and it was a great relief to touch the statue and feel the soothing magic flow through her. Once that was done, however, she moved out of Juste's way and sat on the grass, arms wrapped loosely around her legs as she set her head on her knees. This whole Marluxia/Dracula thing was seriously doing bad things for her mental state.

Juste watched her flop down on the grass with no small amount of concern. He also touched the statue, before sitting down a few feet away in front of her.  
"It really drives it all home, doesn't it?" he said, which caused her to look up at him. "How close you came to losing it all? In the weeks after I rescued Maxim and Lydie from this cursed place, I tried not think of how it could have gone, otherwise I would have gone mad. Maxim fought the possession for days, but it was only the sight of this -" He pulled back his sleeve to show a frayed braided leather cord around his wrist, with an "M" stamped on a small metal disk. "-that gave him the strength to expel Dracula before he could take full control. Lydie made two of them, one for me and one for Maxim, when we were children, and we never took them off." He pushed his sleeve back down and let his hands drop to his lap. "When I found the opposite to this one, stamped with a "J" instead of an "M", I realized that something was seriously wrong. I'd already been consumed with worry at that point, since the woman I had hoped to one day marry was missing, and my best friend was acting very strange, but finding that bracelet abandoned in the castle sent that worry spiking to new heights."

"Possession is never an easy thing to deal with, even when the victim is an enemy, because no one deserves having their free will taken from them like that. I can only say that the best thing we can do for Marluxia now is to kill Dracula, so he can go to whatever afterlife awaits him."

"I don't care about Marluxia, really. He was an enemy that I would have had to destroy anyway. But the fact that Dracula just...repressed him to death... I hate possession. Absolutely despise it. My two best friends were victims of it, Terra especially was possessed for years until the darkness destroyed his body and released his heart, and I was part of the team that fought against thirteen versions of the same man, because he had twelve 'vessels' that he had poured his soul into... It's all just too much."

Juste felt it best not to mention that Marluxia wasn't dead, that his heart and soul were trapped in the body that Dracula controlled and would remain that way until Dracula was defeated. Killing the host body was the only way to bring Dracula down now.

"Well we can't do anything now." he said instead, and he pulled two more meal packs out of his pockets and released the spells on them. "We must eat and then sleep for a least a few hours before we can go on from here. No doubt we will have to face Death before we can deal with Dracula, and he is always a difficult opponent." He handed one of the packs to Aqua. "Hopefully food and rest will help clear your head."

Aqua dug into the food, not because she was at all hungry at the moment, but because she knew it was necessary. She barely tasted it as it passed through her mouth, though she did feel a bit bad about that since Juste's wife had taken the time to prepare them all. It seemed a bit ungrateful not to appreciate them. It was just difficult to taste anything with the way she was feeling. She could probably have eaten Indian curry and barely noticed it right now.

Once she finished, she burned the remains with minimal fire magic, then found a comfortable spot on the grass and tried to rest.

Juste ate his own meal as he watched her curl up to try and sleep. He ate in silence, burned his trash, and then decided to follow her lead. He pulled his coat off and laid it on the grass, before he pulled his breast plate off, and lying down on his coat. Hopefully thoughts of what had almost happened to Maxim and Lydie wouldn't haunt his dreams.

Aqua closed her eyes, but sleep evaded her. She did her best to rest, but the best she could manage was a partial meditative state by clearing her mind the best she could. She feared dreaming, reliving all of the experiences she'd gone through in her fasirly short life. She was only in her mid-twenties, and yet she and her friends had suffered so much. Ven was only 14 when everything with Vanitas and Xehanort happened the first time, and when he finally awoke with a repaired heart, he had to go right back to fighting them all over again! It wasn't fair. She knew that she had signed up for a hard life when she accepted her destiny as a Keyblade wielder, and then again when she pursued and received her Mark of Mastery. She knew it wouldn't be easy. But she had never known what she was really getting into when Xehanort got involved. He ruined so many lives. She and her friends had had to pick up the pieces once he was gone, and try to establish some semblance of life again. Five years, and it still felt surreal. Maybe this was all some elaborate dream, and she was still in the Realm of Darkness. How would she really know?


	10. Chapter 10

**10.**

Juste didn't sleep long. He could feel Dracula's presence, even from within the soothing calm of the sanctuary, and he wouldn't be able to completely relax with it there. Hopefully, what little sleep he got would be enough.

He sat up and rubbed the sand out of his eyes as he looked around. The statue had recharged, and the soft glow lit the clearing. Aqua was still lying nearby, but her breathing made it clear that she was not asleep. His still felt satisfied after the meal he had eaten earlier, so he hadn't slept for more than a few hours. He pulled off the ribbon that kept his hair back, finger combed it as best he could, and retied it. He then reached into a pocket and fished out a bit of jerky to snack on while he waited for Aqua to stir.

He didn't wait long. Once she heard movement that was more than a simple stirring in sleep, she sat up and rubbed her forehead.

"Are you all right?" he asked. She looked like she hadn't slept at all.

"I'll be better once we get this over with and I go home," she replied, a bit more bluntly than she'd intended.

"If you like, I can use a spell to get you a few hours sleep. You won't stand a chance against Death or Dracula if you're tired."

"Is it dreamless?"

"Yes, though I can't give you more than a few hours. Any more than that will result in you being too groggy to think clearly when you wake."

"Can I break it from the inside if I feel the need to?"

Juste shrugged. "That I honestly can't tell you. I rarely use it, and so far no one has tried."

She glanced away. "Then no more than an hour. If I don't know that I can break it, don't put me under for any longer than that. If you're sure we have the time for this. I can handle myself as I am. Sleep doesn't actually do anything for my magic supply, and I've operated under conditions far worse to my body than this. I would be fine."

"Alright then." Juste stood up and walked over to her. "Ready?" She nodded, and he held out his hand, like he wanted her to take it. Instead he called up his magic like he did for normal spellcasting, but now he sent towards her with the intent of making her sleep for an hour. He'd used it on Lydie once, during her pregnancy with Alexandra, when it seemed she was always too uncomfortable to sleep. She'd later described it as feeling like she was being wrapped in a warm blanket.

He felt the magic leave his hand, felt it flow over to Aqua and wrap around her.

It might have been comforting for Lydie, but Aqua was a magic user herself from another world, and she found it rather more disconcerting to allow herself to fall prey to a spell like that. It made her feel mostly numb, rather than warm.

Aqua sank down to the grass as her eyes closed, and Juste wondered about the merits of trying to squeeze in another hour himself, but no. Dracula's presence was hammering against his senses. It was doubtful he'd be able to relax enough to sleep again without another major battle to tire him out first. He would just have to wait and relax while Aqua slept.

Once exactly one hour passed, Aqua awoke, suddenly and almost unexpectedly. She shook herself, throwing off the remnants of Juste's spell like a cat shakes off water: in a most perturbed manner.

"Feeling any better?" Juste asked from where he sat, leaning against the statue.

Not really, but... "My headache has waned; I should be fine." She stood and brushed the grass from her clothes.

Juste replaced his breastplate, shrugged his coat on, and stood as well. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." Let's get this over with.

Juste nodded and walked out of the sanctuary and back out into the staircase. Once Aqua had joined him, he led her back into the castle entrance.

"We have to go up from here." he explained as he cleared out the zombies that spawned up from the floor. "We'll return to the warp room by where we faced the incubus, and then take that staircase up. No doubt it leads to the upper part of the castle, where Death and Dracula will be waiting for us."

"Why bother waiting for us?" she asked. "Why not make it as difficult as possible for us to reach them so we're already tired by the time we get there?" Not that it was at all easy to tire a keybearer out, but that was beside the point.

"I said Dracula is powerful." Juste replied. "I never said he was intelligent. He certainly was as a human, but that all seemed to vanish once his second wife died. His ability to make rational decisions apparently died with her."

"And Death isn't smart enough either?"

"Death does whatever Dracula tells him." They reached the opening in the ceiling and quickly climbed back up. The maids had reappeared, but his and Aqua's magic cleared them out before they had a chance to stand up from the floor. "Death can be cunning when it suits him, but once Dracula is around, he is little more than a dog on a leash."

"Seems an inefficient way to be." She cut down another lackey in their path, using only her blade and minor spells on them. She wasn't about to waste valuable magic on these creatures now, even though she had a vast pool at her disposal. Juste seemed to think the two they would face would be incredibly difficult, and she was inclined to agree. Thus it wouldn't do to tire herself before they got there.

"I for one, am grateful. I shudder to think of what Dracula would be like if he had retained all of the intelligence and tactical genius he had as a human. The man helped lead an army, and his company never lost, so the idea of such a being having all of Dracula's power frightens me more than I can say."

He pushed open the doors to the warp room. "So we're returning to the warp room by where the incubus was. I'll see you there." He stepped into the circle and directed it where to send him. A few seconds later, he appeared in the other room, and he stepped aside to wait for Aqua.

She arrived moments later with no trouble. "Lead on," she suggested.

They walked out of the warp room into the short hallway, and it was a quick walk to the stairs. Before they were more than a few steps up, Juste heard a sound he had been dreading, and he groaned and ran his hand down his face.

"What is it?" she asked straight away. She could hear a faint metallic ticking sound, evenly spaced and repetitive, multiplied by a dozen, and a whirring noise along with it.

He didn't answer. He continued up the staircase and pushed open the hatch at the top. He climbed up through it and turned to offer Aqua a hand up. They were standing in the center of a large square shaped room with a ceiling that stretched up for dozens upon dozens of yards. Spinning gears of various sizes covered the walls, some small enough to fit in the palm of one's hand, others large enough to cover a house. Platforms moved up and down through the space, some via tracks in the set into the walls, while others simply floated in midair, held up by the castle's magic. Three enormous brass weights, the smallest of which was twice Juste's height, hung suspended from the distant ceiling as they regulated the clock's function. Spikes covered sections of the floor as well as parts of the walls, and they were coated with blood and bits of tissue. Several of them had scraps of clothing and dried bones tangled up in them.

And above it all, small flying creatures that consisted only of a head with small snakes for hair, flew through the room, seemingly materializing from one wall and vanishing when they reached the opposite.

"Welcome, Miss Aqua," Juste said with a sardonic smile, "to the Clock Tower."

"At least it's clockwork, I suppose. I've always been quite agile, and I've experience with this sort of moving platform business. The gore is new, though." She remembered flitting through the strange underground system of Disneytown years ago, with its clockwork and steam platforms, hands, and tubes. She had fallen repeatedly, but she had plenty of determination and cleared the entire place. "What do I need to know about those things flying around?"

"Those are Medusa Heads, and you should avoid them at all costs. The green ones will hurt you and knock you back. We don't know how they do it, but they do. The yellow ones are far, far worse. They not only hurt you and knock you back, but they also petrify you, and when you are petrified, things... do more damage to you. The good news if you can get yourself out of the petrification by struggling enough, but it's something to avoid in here."

"Can they be destroyed?" If she could hit them before they hit her, there should be no problem.

"Oh yes, they go down in one hit, but they just keep reappearing. We have no idea where they are coming from. Medusa herself wasn't even in the castle this time, and one would think that they were coming from her, but you can stand here all day and slaughter them by the dozens. They'll just keep coming back."

That was bothersome, but nothing to be done about it except deal with it and push through. "All right. Does the path change, can you tell, or is it the same as the last time you went through?"

"The Clock Tower is always different, like the rest of the castle, and this one seems much more vertical than the one I went through before. I also don't remember seeing so many spikes."

"Lovely. Trial and error then, I suppose. Would it at least be reasonable to assume that if we want the top of the tower, we can just focus on moving upward? Or is there some part of this that's more maze-like than that?" She had started to really understand that the castle made very little sense at times.

"This one looks pretty straight forward, though I'm sure we'll find the occasional side room, and no doubt a sanctuary is in here somewhere." He glanced up. "I'm certain that there are other floors above this one as well." He then turned and looked at Aqua. "Well, nowhere else to go but up. Shall we get started?"

"Of course," she sighed. So. Kill the heads, and keep a lookout for their revival. While jumping across moving gears and pendulums. No problem. At least she very rarely took falling damage.

Juste looked up at the various gears and platforms, and then he cast a feather light spell on himself before he hopped up onto the nearest gear, one a little shorter than himself. He walked with it as it turned for a few seconds, careful to step only on the teeth rather than risk getting a foot caught between them and eyed his next jump. Medusa Heads came out of the wall in front of him, but a quick lightning spell took care of them.

A platform, one using magic to keep itself up, dropped down on his left, and he quickly hopped up onto it and rode it up while he waited for Aqua to catch up to him.

Aqua followed easily, and fairly quickly, knowing that it would be best to keep as near as she could manage. She knew from experience that the platforms tended to move quickly, even in other places, and so if she weren't fast enough she wouldn't be able to catch up any time soon. The platform Juste had taken had risen beyond the height that a regular jump could reach, so she drew on her skills and High Jumped up to it with a neat flip, with a quick Doubleflight to give her that little extra lift she needed to catch the platform and hop up onto it.

"Impressive." Juste said with a small smile. "I can do that myself, but I prefer not too. The landing can be painful if I misjudge, even with the feather light spell."

"I only rarely get hurt from a fall. Usually it's only if I land poorly. As long as I'm on my feet, I don't usually take injury from it. I believe it's a bonus from my armor, though it could be my magic as well. I've never really thought about it."

"Magic is wonderful for things like that, but it has its limits somewhere, and I'd rather not find it in the worst possible way." Juste said as he kept an eye on a group of approaching Medusa Heads. At the rate the platform was rising, they would run right into them. He stepped in front of Aqua and held the Vampire Killer out in front of him. With a twist of his wrist, he caused the whip to spin in front of him, and the Medusa Heads flew right into it. They vanished in little bursts of flame, and they were able to step off at the top of the ride onto an outcropping of stone jutting from one of the tower walls.

"You make a good point, but I've trusted my body for years, and it hasn't failed me yet." One of the heads approached from the gears they had just left moments ago, and she shot it from the air with a quick fire spell.

"True enough." Juste jumped towards another gear, this one much larger than the first one, but his foot slipped. His heart seemed to stop for a second, but then he quickly used his magic to give him a surface to jump off of a second time. Nothing was visible to the eye, but he could feel it under his feet as he pushed off of it and landed on the gear. The gear was turning clockwise, and one side of it ran up against a set of broken spikes. The ragged remains of a shirt was caught up in them. He walked across the teeth, but they were too big to walk across without stepping into the gaps. He stumbled a bit and looked up to find the next place to jump to.

Aqua, on the other hand, had always found her footing quite easily, and was able to compensate for the gaps and teeth of the gears without much trouble. She hopped from step to step, eyes on her path but not concentrating too hard on them alone. Juste, on the other hand, was not paying enough attention to his surroundings, and one of the yellow heads, coming up at them from an angle Aqua didn't have line of sight to, sailed straight into him, petrifying him in the process.

Aqua gaped for a moment as Juste turned to stone right in front of her. She didn't have time to just stare for long, though, as the Medusa head came after her next. She dispatched it quickly.

Juste felt the Medusa Head fly right into his chest, and he was lifted off of his feet and tossed backwards towards the wall just as he felt his body stiffen, freezing him in position. Fortunately, he did not fall and remained on the gear. Unfortunately, he the gear was rotating towards the spikes on the wall, taking him with it. As much as the petrification would allow he wiggled his body and flexed his muscles, and he was rewarded when the stone covering him began to crack and crumble. He thought he could almost feel the spikes poking him in the back when the stone finally shattered just as the cog was about to push him into them.

He jumped straight up into the air and called his magic up. This caused him to fly straight up in the air and land on the underside of a platform above. He crouched there, upside down for a second, before he dropped back down. A quick double jump later, and he landed neatly on another platform just above the gear he had been standing on.

He raked his hair back from his face as he willed his heart to slow down. "I hate the clock tower!" he called down to Aqua.

"You don't say," she snarked in reply, and executed another High Jump towards the wall over the spikes, then when she landed on the rounded side, she pushed off them in another jump to meet up with Juste once again.

"You need to quit making this look so easy." he told her. "My ancestors are laughing at me now. I know it."

She laughed in response. "Sorry, acrobatics are sort of my thing. Ven and I made Terra look like a charging bull most of the time because he'd keep going even though we'd already vaulted out of his path. This place is actually not all that difficult for me. The flying heads that turn you to stone are unpleasant, but the obstacle course isn't so bad."

"I've been taught my entire life that I shouldn't envy, but," Juste shook his head, "I find it rather hard not to when I see you doing things like that."

"I'm sorry, should I tone it down?" she joked. Then she fired a chunk of ice at an approaching head.

"Yes, please." he replied with a grin as he fired off a Magic Missile spell at a few more heads. "My poor masculinity cannot handle being shown up by a woman like this. I might have to start wearing my wife's dresses at this rate."

She laughed again, bright and cheerful. "Oh, I'm so very sorry. I'll try to remember how delicate it is and be more sensitive."

He leveled her with a serious look and drew himself up. "You do that." He then snorted with laughter. "Remind me when we get out of here to introduce you to my sister. I think you two would get along wonderfully."

"I know nothing about her, but from that statement alone, I already like her." The platform reached its peak, and Aqua hopped off onto another set of gears. Two heads flew at her, and she zapped them with Thunder.

Juste followed her. "The only reason it's me here instead of her is that I have more raw power than her, and Sara chose me, so I was the one trained to use the whip. She was also trained in the ways of the vampire hunter, but I'm the head, I guess you can say, of the family."

"Hm, that's not so different from how keyblades work. Keyblades choose their wielders, more than anything. The ability can be passed on through a rite, but one has to have the capability to begin with. When I was discovered to have the ability to wield one, I was taken in by Master Eraqus, and trained until I could summon one reliably, then I continued to learn and practice until I passed the Mark of Mastery exam. Ven was something of an orphan that was brought to us by someone else." She decided to neglect that particular facet of the tale, since Xehanort was an extremely sore subject. "He trained with us for quite a while before he managed to summon his keyblade for the first time. We weren't sure if he would ever be able to for some time. He had been a wielder before, but he had an accident, of sorts, and his heart had been damaged. Then Terra, he had been an orphan himself that Eraqus had taken in before his ability to use a keyblade was evident. But he could, though not until I came to that world too. He had trained a little longer than me, but he wasn't chosen by a keyblade until I began practicing with him. And then years later, I passed the Mastery exam, and he...didn't." She shook her head, dislodging the memories of pain and worry from that time. "But anyway, there are probably many people throughout the worlds that could technically use a keyblade if they were trained to, but if a keyblade never chose them, they would still never be able to wield one."

"Are keyblades common? The Vampire Killer is unique, as far as I know, though the ritual that created it is known by others. The circumstances that need to line up to make the ritual work are blessedly rare, so I know of no other weapon like it."

"I know I probably made it sound like it, but no, they're actually not. They used to be, in long ages past. There was a great war, called the Keyblade War, in which thousands died fighting to possess something known as Kingdom Hearts. The world where the war came to a head is called the Keyblade Graveyard now, because all of the keyblades of the fallen now stand where they died. However, now there are only a few that I know of. A couple years ago there were twenty: seven of light, and thirteen of darkness. Now, the darkness has been extinguished, and so only the light remain, with a couple of additions brought over from the darkness. I'm also fairly certain that Riku's blade is a neutral one, rather than of darkness or light, but as he fought on the side of light, he was thus considered such himself. There are a fair number of Keychains, however, that we can use to change the design and attributes of our individual keyblades. I'd show you if we weren't in the middle of something."

"We'll add it to the list of things we'll have to talk about in front of a crackling fire later." Juste spun the whip again to clear a few Medusa heads, before taking advantage in the break in their appearance and jumped off the gear onto another moving platform.

She followed once again, gracefully never missing her intended landing. She only misjudged a jump once as they moved through the tower. She hadn't leapt quite far enough, and her foot slipped off the edge. She caught herself by her fingertips on the ledge, however, and managed to vault herself back up.

Juste sighed with relief when they reached the top. Well that was the first part of the tower down. They stood at the base of a staircase up to the next level, and he reached out and caught Aqua by the shoulder when she went to go up.

"I feel I should warn you." he said when she looked at him questioningly. "The next area up is likely to be worse. I can't hear over the noise of the machinery, but I've no doubt we'll find Harpies up there to accompany the Medusa Heads. The two of them will make climbing up very dangerous, especially when I'm also expecting for us to have to jump across swinging pendulums as well."

Pendulums didn't sound like a terrible trial. The harpies, however... "All right, tell me about these Harpies." She wondered how similar they were to the harpies of Greek mythology.

"They're some strange cross of a woman and a bird. Human faces, and their upper body is like a woman's, but they are covered in golden feathers from the neck down, and they have wings instead of arms, bird's talons instead of feet. They prefer to try and get close to you to either push you off your perch or kick you. If you keep your distance they will fire razor-sharp feathers at you instead."

Exactly like the depictions of the Greek harpies then. "They sound lovely," she drawled. "Any particular weaknesses? Fire, I presume, would burn their feathers quite satisfactorily."

"They are rather fragile, so anything you can think of will work." He gestured at the stairs. "Shall we?"

"No sense in wasting time," she replied, and started up with her blade still in her hand. She had hardly de-summoned it the majority of the time in the castle.

Juste went up the stairs without another word, as they emerged into the upper floor, his suspicions were confirmed by the sounds of flapping wings. He cleared the steps and had to quickly spin the whip to clear a space out of the Medusa Heads so Aqua could come up safely. A quick look upward showed that the room was relatively free of gears, but multiple pendulums, some nearly as large as the largest gears in the room below, were swinging from the ceiling. Above them, harpies flapped around, though they hadn't appeared to have noticed the two people down at the floor level. That, he knew, wouldn't last long.

"Could we just take them both down right away, so they don't have a chance to knock us off the pendulums?" Aqua questioned in a low tone beside Juste.

"We certainly can, but more will simply take their place, very much like how the Medusa Heads just keep reappearing, so will these."

"How does that work, I wonder? What do these creatures draw on to produce more of themselves in that way? Heartless draw on darkness, of which there is an endless supply, but I don't know if these monsters are quite the same." Philosophical and curious, even in the middle of a challenge.

"We can only assume that the castle, as well as Dracula himself, are calling them forth from whence they came. Once Dracula is defeated, and the castle has crumbled, you won't see them again until the next resurrection." Juste eyed the platforms and traced up the path they would have to take to reach the top. "Let's get going then."

He hopped up onto the nearest platform and looked up at the harpies as it ascended. It didn't take long for the lowest flying harpy to notice him, and it screeched as it flew down to him. He dodged its sharp talons and sent the Vampire Killer whipping out at it. The whip struck true against its neck, and the creature screeched again, this time in pain, before vanishing in a puff of feathers.

Aqua followed as she had before, and soon enough they drew towards the next harpy. Aqua didn't wait for it to notice them, but cast a quick succession of moderate fireballs at it, aiming for the feathered wings that would so easily transfer a flame to the rest of it.

Juste hopped up onto the next platform as the second harpy went down in flames, and he watched the nearest pendulum as it swung to and fro, gauging its speed and figuring the best time to jump onto it. It wouldn't be a problem really if he missed, but it would waste time, and he wanted out of this clock tower as quickly as possible. The pendulum swung back in his direction, and before it could reach the end of the swing, he leapt off of the platform and onto its brass surface. His boots slipped on the polished metal, but he grabbed onto the massive rod it was hanging from and used that to steady himself as it swung back towards the next one.

The flapping of wings fell on his ears then, and he looked up to see a harpy swooping down towards him. He held his hand out towards it, and ice shards flew from his hands and impacted its wings, coating its flight feathers in ice. The creature struggled for a moment, and then it suddenly dropped down to the floor far below.

Aqua waited for Juste to jump to the next pendulum before attempting to move onto it herself. While the platforms were manageable, as it was easy to keep one's balance on them, the pendulums were a different matter. But once he crossed to the second one, she leapt onto the first, catching the rod with her free hand. It would seem the next harpy had learned from its fellows, and only approached so far, remaining at range to beat its wings and pelt her with the aforementioned razor-sharp feathers.. Aqua threw up her barrier, and the feathers plinked into them and fell far below. "Only three?" she questioned when they were arrested by her shield. "I expected that to be far more problematic." She allowed her shield to fall, and sent more fire missiles from her blade to destroy the harpy.

A quick glance showed that no more harpies had appeared for the moment, so Juste leapt over to the next, smaller pendulum. He then turned and kept an eye out for more harpies as Aqua jumped over to the one he had just left. She made the jump easily, and just in time as three more harpies appeared near the ceiling and started to come down to them. Hydro Storm would have taken care of them easily, but he didn't dare use water while they were climbing, so the next best thing was...

His magic surged forward as he cast Stardust, sending it streaking up from behind him only to rain down on the harpies a second later. They screeched and screamed under the onslaught, and he gestured for Aqua to come forward, just before he leapt off of the pendulum and onto a platform.

She made that jump as well, her timing necessarily accurate, and continued onto Juste's spot. "I like that spell," she remarked with a smile.

He returned the smile. "It certainly does come in handy, doesn't it?" He looked up; they were almost to the top.

He jumped up onto a series of small gears on the wall, and walked up them as they grew in size until he reached another moving platform. No more harpies appeared, so it was an easy ride to the top, where another solid platform waited, with a staircase leading to the next floor. He waited for Aqua to join him, and then they proceeded up the stairs. They came up into a small square room, with two doors on opposite walls, and wrought iron fences on the other two sides. Withered vines covered the thin, iron bars, their leaves lying in a pile on the floor.

Juste pointed out the one side, at the full moon shining down on the castle, bathing the room in silver light. "Do you see what I mean? The moon had been less than half full when we entered the castle, and I highly doubt that we've been in here long enough for the moon to go from its first quarter to full on its own. This is the castle's magic at work."

"The castle can advance the stage of a celestial body? That seems unreal. How can something have that much power?"

Juste continued to look out at the moon, with the spire of the throne room rising in front of it. "It gets even more bizarre when you realize that it's only affected in the view of someone in the castle. If we were to leave the castle right now, the moon would be as it should. If you look at that large room with the pointed roof in front of it with the staircase leading down? That's the throne room, and once we are on that staircase, the moon will turn the color of blood. It's eerie."

She tilted her head, considering that. "Is the castle frozen in time, then? So then it's not influencing the moon, but rather showing the area to be as it was at one particular time in the past?"

"I honestly cannot tell you. No one really knows how this castle works, not even Dracula himself, I'm certain. Time seems to have little meaning here, as I'm sure that once we leave, we'll find out that we've been in here for several days when it feels like it's only been a few at most."

Aqua nodded, frowning, and as she looked down from the sky, she noted the vines. "They're dead. I guess it really was Lauriam's influence then, huh? And with him no longer in control, the plant life is dying."

"It certainly seems like it. Dracula has no care for such things, so without Lauriam, all the plant life is withering away." Juste turned away from the vines and looked at the two doors. One was the glowing blue of a sanctuary, the second, he had no doubt, led to where Death was certainly waiting for him. "Death is up ahead, and he is a difficult fight. We should rest up before continuing."

"Are you certain it's necessary? We didn't exactly waste all that much energy making our way through the tower."

"Yes, it is necessary." Juste replied in a firm tone. "I need you to trust me on this one. We will need every drop of energy we can spare to survive what is coming." He didn't wait for an answer as he walked into the sanctuary. He went right up to the statue and touched it and felt the magic he had used refill as the ache in his legs from jumping around faded.

Aqua merely shrugged and followed after him. He was the expert here, after all. She was little more than his assistant, really.

Juste settled down in front of the statue and pulled out a bit of jerky and a bottle of water to snack on. He tossed a second bottle to Aqua when she sat down nearby.

She accepted it gratefully and sipped on it steadily, refilling her cells after the unusual amount of jumping around they'd had to do. It hadn't been particularly difficult, in her opinion, perhaps given her greater agility. But it was still quite a bit of exercise that differed from her usual fighting style. She was highly mobile, certainly, but not in a way that required her to frequently gain elevation. Unlike Juste, she didn't eat anything. She didn't feel the need for it, and she didn't want more weight settling in her digestive tract. It would only slow her down.

Juste finished his water and stuffed the empty bottle in his pocket. Aqua tossed the other to him, and it went into the pocket as well. He then finished off his jerky and stood up. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." She was ready to be done here.

Juste led the way out of the sanctuary, across the small room that they had come up in to, and through the door on the other side.

On the other side of the door was a large, square room, deeper and longer than the rooms below. On one wall was the clock face, with is massive drive shaft stretching across the room to meet the series of gears on the other side. On either side of the clock face were more wrought iron fences overlooking the castle below. Across the room was another door, set in the middle of the wall.

In the center of the room was Death, scythe out and at the ready. Juste stopped several feet away from him.

"You have served your purpose." Death said, and his hollow sounding voice echoed around the room.

"Then let's get this over with." Juste replied.

Death dropped down towards the floor and flew straight at him. Juste jumped to the side and sent the Vampire Killer flying out after him. It connected with Death's back, but unlike every other creature inside the castle, there was no sign of injury. If it hadn't been for Death's pained yell, he wouldn't have been able to tell if he had hit him at all.

There was a clicking sound, followed by a whirring, and Juste didn't look. He merely dodged to the side once again to avoid the little sickle that came spinning down from above. It hit the floor and vanished.

"Look out for the sickles!" he called to Aqua as he dodged a second one. "They can appear anywhere!"

Aqua dodged one, then parried another with her blade before she was forced to flip backwards to avoid another much too close to her face. Once the sickle attack ceased, she fired off a fast Triple Blizzaga at Death.

Death laughed as his scythe vanished, and he held out his skeletal arms. Eight glowing curved blades appeared in the air in front of him, and then one after another, four of them went after Juste, while the other four honed in on Aqua. Juste jumped over the first, jumped to the left to avoid the second, slid under the third, and used the Vampire Killer to knock the fourth away. He scrambled to his feet, dodged two more sickles that were honing in on him and castle Magic Missile at Death just as he resummoned his scythe and went flying after Aqua.

Aqua called her barrier up, and the first blade struck it and fell away, but the second one cracked it. In surprise, and unwilling to find out what might happen if the third were to shatter it, she dropped the shield and leapt away to avoid the other two in quick succession. And then immediately thereafter, she was forced to dodge back again as Death fell upon her with a swift swing of his scythe. She could not merely dodge forever, though, so she threw her blade up to intercept the second swipe, and their weapons collided with a shriek of metal. Rather than attempt (and fail) to push back against him with her blade, she used him as a counterweight to propel herself further away and grant her just enough time to send a Fission Firaga at him. The explosive fire struck him head on, rolling over his robes, but it didn't seem to phase him, and she was grateful when Juste arrived to distract him.

Juste cast Hydro Storm while Death was preoccupied by Aqua, and the spell filled the room, hitting Death repeatedly and temporarily clearing out the sickles flying through the air. As soon as the spell ended, however, they reappeared, and he spun the Vampire Killer in a circle to take out five that were flying towards him. He ran across the room, and he managed to land a second hit with the Vampire Killer before Death darted across the room, leaving a trail of rapidly spinning sickles in his wake.

Aqua dodged as the sickles spun at them, knocking a few of them to the ground with her weapon. They were such a pain. She utilized the distance between herself and Death to lock onto him and send a Meteor Shower at him, the rain of stars pelting him mercilessly.

Death grunted in pain and rose quickly into the air before coming down bringing his scythe down hard enough to embed the blade in the floor. Juste imagined that he could almost hear the _shing!_ of the blade as it just missed him. He ducked and scrambled away, but a sickle came down and sliced his left sleeve open. It cut through his coat, his undershirt, and cut a gash in his upper arm. Blood welled in the wound and ran down, and he hooked the Vampire Killer onto his belt so he could use his right hand to reach into a pocket and pull a potion out. He flipped the cork out, drank it down, and then had to roll away again as Death streaked across the room, leaving another trail of sickles as he went.

Juste dropped the potion bottle and grabbed for the Vampire Killer, and he spun it over his head to clear the sickles away as they came towards him.

"Firestorm!" A whirling ring of fire formed in the air, and Death grunted again as he was caught in it but he moved away before it could run its course.

Aqua made good use of her distance from their opponent. In between dodging and parrying the endless sickles, she shot spell after spell at Death, each one zooming towards him with ferocious intent. A few missed as he moved, but most of them collided with him. They simply weren't painful enough to do much damage. She smacked another sickle away, but the angle was poor and it caught her ankle as it tumbled to the floor, leaving her a painful scratch that she did her best to ignore as it wasn't life threatening. Instead she used the pain to concentrate on building up the energy to cast Ice Barrage. The initial ice that formed didn't bother Death in the slightest, but the huge crystal that shot up a moment later crashed into him solidly and tossed him into the air. He let out a pained noise as he quickly regained his stance, and flew after Aqua in retaliation. She danced back, avoiding his blade as quickly as possible, but she wasn't quite fast enough to avoid taking a cut to her arm. It sliced through her sleeve and cracked the arm band that held it to her as well as giving her a nasty scratch. She cried out and leapt away, but he pursued. She used his next attempt to teleport behind him and put a Firaga through his back.

Death paused where he was, and Juste stopped and watched him. One bony arm was held in the air, and Juste felt the floor under his feel crackle and tingle. He jumped away just in time to see a column of white light erupt from the floor where he had been standing. A second later, the spot where he was standing did the same, and he began to run across the room, pursued by the light columns as he went. They made a loud buzzing sound as they erupted from the floor, and he caught a glimpse of Aqua dodging her own set as he ran.

Finally the floor stopped tingling, he ducked and rolled under a sickle, and once again Death laughed and summoned the eight curved blades. Juste managed to fire off a Salamander spell just before he had to start dodging the blades.

Aqua dodged around the blades, not wanting to chance blocking or parrying them given what they'd done to her shield. She only narrowly avoided one of the four, if taking a cut to her hip counted as avoiding having it stab through her leg. Once they were gone, she smacked another sickle from the air as it spun toward her and then cast Fission Firaga once again at the enemy.

Death paused in mid air and laughed. The light seemed to be sucked out of the air around him. He laughed again as chains erupted from the floor ceiling and walls, forming a cage. Juste spun around in place, but he could see no gap big enough to fit through. Death held his arms out, and his scythe began to spin around in a blur, bouncing off the floor, ceiling, and walls of the cage.

Juste dove to the side as the spinning scythe flew towards him, and there was the screech of metal as it ricocheted off the chains and went back in the opposite direction.

"Fire!" He fired off a series of fireballs, but they bounced off and fizzled away without appearing to do anything.

Aqua dropped to the ground to avoid the scythe as it swept past her, then rolled and sent equally ineffective ice chunks at Death as he continued his attack. The scythe spun in her direction again and she swiftly cartwheeled away from it. The 'cage' surrounding them was a fairly large size, but that wasn't particularly helpful even so with a large scythe ricocheting off everything.

There was another screech as Aqua dodged the scythe, and it bounced off the chains and went flying back towards Juste. He double jumped over it, there was another screech, and sparks flew by him as he quickly dropped to the floor as the spinning scythe flew over his head. It bounced off the ceiling, and then angled down and struck the chains over by Aqua. The screeching metal was followed by the metal chains shattering into pieces, and the scythe vanished and reappeared in Death's hand. He spun it a few times before dropping down to floor level and flying towards Juste.

Juste pulled hard on his magic and jumped up onto the ceiling just as the scythe cut through the air where he had been. He dropped back down to the floor, using his double jump to land him several feet away from Death and summoned a frost comet. The large block of ice smashed down between Death's shoulders as he began to turn around, and a grunt showed that Death had felt it.

Aqua stood only a few paces from Juste, and gave him a brief warning to watch his eyes as she took the opportunity to cast Mega Flare. The shot hit Death and transformed into a massive blast that certainly forced a noise from its target. Two very powerful hits in a row had to have done some damage. It was so difficult to tell how much they'd hurt the creature when it gave no real signs of pain or visible damage.

The force of the blast pushed Juste back a few feet. Once they were out of this place, she would have to teach him that spell...

The light faded, and none too soon, and Death set the scythe to spinning in his hand, and then he threw it at them. It whirled through the air, its blade a blur, and it sailed over their heads.

"Look out, Miss Aqua!" Juste called as the scythe reached the wall. Instead of bouncing back to its owner, it went straight down the wall to the floor, and then came at them. Juste jumped over it as it went flying by and returned to Death's hand. Before he could do anything else, Juste called up his magic and pushed it as much as he could into a spell.

"Holy Lightning!"

Lighting erupted from his hand, and it arced around the room. Death made another pained noise, but then he merely laughed again as more chains erupted from the floor. Instead of surrounding them as well as Death, they only surrounded the two of them, and Death did not throw his scythe. Juste looked over at Aqua for a second in confusion, and she mirrored the look just as another chain shot out of the void it came from and wound itself around Aqua.

Aqua struggled hard against the chains, but nothing she could think of to cast could get her out, especially given that most of her useful spells relied on her being able to use her keyblade to target, and she was bound quite tightly here. She glanced at Death to see him drifting towards her, confident in his ability to kill her to the point that he felt no need to rush.

Juste cursed under his breath as Death began drifting over towards Aqua, his scythe at the ready. He sent the Vampire Killer at the chain that bound Aqua, striking it again and again as she struggled. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Death moving closer, clearly not in any hurry.

"Come on, damn you." he said under his breath as the whip took chips out of the metal. "Come on, come on, come on!" Death stopped over Aqua just as the Vampire Killer slammed into the chain one more time. The metal shattered, Aqua dropped to the floor, and she rolled away just as Death's scythe came streaking through the air a split second later.

She didn't dare take the time to consider how very close that was. She just got the hell out of range and yanked an ether from her pocket, downing the blue liquid and restoring her magic. While she was at it, a potion wouldn't be amiss, so she pulled one of those bottles from her pocket and downed that as well, which healed the cuts on her body and the bruising from the chain. Then she got right back to work, shooting spell after spell at Death while avoiding the sickles that had once again resumed their attacks.

Juste took the opportunity to drink down a Mind Up as Death sent his scythe flying along the ceiling again. He tossed the empty bottle aside and dodged to the right to avoid the scythe as it went spinning by along the floor, and he ran after it. It returned to Death's hand, just as Juste reached him, and he lashed out with the Vampire Killer and landed several hits before Death was forced to move away.

"Grand Cross!"

Death yelled as he was caught in the holy power, and as soon as the spell ended, Juste dropped to the floor and dashed away just as the scythe slammed to the floor where he'd been standing. He spun the Vampire Killer to clear away a few sickles just as Death laughed behind him and the chains came out to form the cage. A second later the scythe spun up and began bouncing around, and Juste groaned in frustration.

"He wasn't this difficult last time." he grumbled.

"Frankly, I'm getting a little sick of this," Aqua remarked in reply. Right now, there was no real point in keeping their distance from Death when he wasn't directly holding his scythe, so Aqua decided she needed to release a bit of stress in the form of physical exertion. She waited for the scythe to pass close to Death, then dashed up to the creature with her blade coated in fire and started slashing her blade at him, each strike hitting him until the scythe flashed by again and she had to pause in her attacks to High Jump over it. But she had always had some level of talent with aerial attacks, so once the scythe passed beneath her, she moved right into beating on him with her keyblade again.

Juste dashed in to join her, and the chains containing the scythe shattered as he added his attacks to Aqua's. The scythe returned to Death as he made many grunts and pain sounds, until finally, he flinched back away from them as he screamed. The sound sent chills racing up Juste's spine as it echoed around the room. The scythe went flying as its master lost grip on it, and he jumped back to avoid it just in case.

Aqua threw herself to the side to avoid the weapon, and it lodged itself in the floor several feet away from Death.

The scythe landed with a loud _chink!_ as it embedded itself point first into the floor, and then the room abruptly fell silent aside from the ticking of the clock and their heavy breathing. Juste stepped back and watched as Death began to dissolve, turning into what appeared to be puffs of dark smoke formed into skeletal faces that drifted up towards the ceiling and vanished. Once he had faded away, Juste looked over at Aqua.

"sanctuary?"

"Yes _please_ ," she replied with emphasis. Juste had not been kidding, this fight had taken a lot of energy.

They made their way quickly back to the sanctuary, and Juste offered thanks that they had made it through the battle safely. Now, they only had to deal with Dracula.

He sat down at the base of the statue. "We should eat and try to get in a few hours of sleep. Since he used Lauriam to resurrect, Dracula will be a full power, and we'll have to throw everything we have at him to have a chance of making it."

She nodded. Their trek through the castle and battle with Death had thankfully driven her mind away from the dark thoughts of possession that had so plagued her earlier, so she should be able to actually get some rest this time. "And here we thought Death was difficult. Does that mean Dracula will be worse?"

Juste nodded. "Likely yes. Sometimes he's less difficult than Death, but Death always comes back at full strength, while Dracula doesn't always. Since Dracula was able to use another's life to fully resurrect, I expect him to be very, very dangerous this time."

"What fun," she deadpanned, and leaned back against the angel statue. She remembered the damaged cuff on her sleeve, and tugged it off to look at it. A large crack spanned the yellow stone in the center of the metal ring and she sighed. It wasn't on the side she habitually used to trigger her armor, but it could still be a problem. She would need to have it repaired at her earliest convenience.

Juste dug around in his pockets for a moment. "We're down to our last two meal packs," he said, "so we had better make them count." He released the spells and handed one to Aqua. "I have enough jerky and other small things to last for a bit, but if we don't get out of here soon, we'll have to start foraging for food in the walls."

"Food... in the walls?" she repeated, confusion evident in her voice as she accepted the meal.

Juste took a bite before he answered. "Mmhmm." he replied as he waved his fork around. "Don't ask how it came to be there, but myself, my grandfather, Christopher, and Trevor have all found meat in the walls. And it's always perfectly cooked and edible. It's never spoiled or rotten. Leon never encountered such a thing in the castle that came before this one, so we have no idea at all where it came from. It can certainly save your life though."

"That is...incredibly odd." Her mind boggled at the sheer incomprehensibility of that, and she had to shake it from her thoughts so she could concentrate on eating before the food cooled too much.

The room went silent as they focused on their meal, and once it was done and the trash was burned, Juste curled up on the grass to catch some sleep. He had a feeling he was going to need it.

Aqua did the same, and with her inability to sleep earlier and her fatigue from the fight with Death, she dropped off quickly.


	11. Chapter 11

**11.**

Juste was surprised by how deeply he slept. He woke up in the same position he had fallen asleep in, and his body ached as he stood up to work out the stiffness. He still felt satisfied from the meal he had eaten, so he hadn't been asleep for too long. His magic levels were normal, and he felt awake and alert and ready to face the rest of the castle.

He didn't feel ready to face Dracula, however. Even the disembodied wrath that he'd faced four years ago had been a challenge, and though he had Aqua with him this time, he was still dreading facing up to a full-power Dracula.

He sighed and looked at the statue, which was glowing softly once more. "If Grandfather could do it alone while being consumed by a curse, then I can do it with Miss Aqua's help."

Hearing her name was enough to wake her. Aqua sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She couldn't wait to go home and get a full night's sleep again. For now, though, she was fine. "Everything okay?"

"Yes," Juste replied as he turned around to look at her, "everything's fine. Just thinking."

She ran her fingers briefly through her hair to lay it moderately flat after the grass kinked it into odd shapes. "All right. Well, I suppose we should get to it, yes?"

They walked out of the sanctuary, across the small room, and into the clock room where they had faced Death. Thankfully, no new monsters had appeared to take his place, and they made in through the opposite door into the next room in short order.

They stepped out onto a battlement of some kind with the moon high up in the dark sky above them, and the feel of Dracula's power seemed to weigh down on them.

"It reminds me of a few enemies I've fought before. Their aura just seems to press you down," Aqua commented, looking up at the impossible moon. It was disconcerting how it always seemed to be night in the castle, and with this strange full moon above them now.

"Those are terrible, aren't they? Just the feel of it makes a battle that much more difficult."

"You almost seem like you're moving slower because of it. It's rather agitating, really. I am not particularly looking forward to this one."

"Neither am I. Since Death sacrificed Marluxia, then Dracula is at full power, of that I am certain. It would be foolish of me to not be worried about what's to come."

"In any case, it's not like we have much choice in the end. He has to go down, regardless how strong he may be," she stated resolutely.

Juste looked at her, nodded, and then he continued on. The continued along the battlement, but not far ahead, he spotted something odd, which made him pause for a moment.

"Tombstones? Why are there tombstones on a battlement?"

"Those clearly don't belong. They're probably going to attack, if they're anything like the chests I've come across in places they shouldn't be," Aqua theorized.

Juste sighed and shook his head slightly. "Just when I think I've seen everything..." He continued forward, and true to Aqua's words, as he got closer, the nearest tombstone shook, and then it hopped up into the air and began to bounce towards him. It it wasn't for the heavy thuds that could be felt through the floor, he would have thought it no heavier than a child's ball. He sent the Vampire Killer streaking towards it, but the attack did not deter it, not even with a direct hit. He didn't want to think of what it would be like to have that thing land on him.

Aqua called lightning to her blade and leapt at the strange enemy, attempting to strike the stone head on and hopefully at least crack the headstone. Without waiting to see what damage the Thunder-strike had achieved, she backflipped away, using the tombstone itself to give her extra distance as she pushed off of it.

Juste landed another hit against the tombstone, followed by a Holy Flame spell. The tombstone then halted in place, shuddered, and then broke apart and crumbled into pieces.

"Now we just have to do that five more times." he said as he quickly counted up the rest of the tombstones, lined up neatly along the battlement on the path to the door at the end.

"What's the point of this?" Aqua wondered aloud with a bit of irritation as she launched herself at another stone and wished that she had more aptitude with earth magic like Terra did, given that it would be most effective in this situation. "It's not as though something like this is going to kill us. It just slows us down a bit. What's the point? Dracula knows we're going to face him soon enough; why not just clear the path for us since he's confident he'll win anyway?"

"Perhaps he's are hoping to wear us down?" Juste said as the next tombstone bounced their way. "Perhaps he's forgotten – somehow – that there are sanctuaries between us and him. Perhaps Dracula is just being his usual, irrational self. Or perhaps Dracula doesn't have as much control over his minions as we think and these things are acting independently of him."

Aqua sighed quietly. "I should stop asking questions I won't like the answers to." She dashed at the gravestone and slammed her keyblade into it, then cartwheeled out of range and fired a simple Blizzaga at it. The block of ice crashed into it and knocked it over, halting its movement for the moment.

Juste launched a fireball at the tombstone, shattering it. "Trying to rationalize the irrational is never good for one's sanity."

Two of the gravestones started after them in tandem, and Aqua shot a Blizzaga at each of them to knock them down for Juste to deliver a follow up attack on, since that seemed to be a useful combo last time.

Seizing the chance, Juste sent the Vampire Killer swinging across in a horizontal arc in front of him, catching both tombstones.

They crumbled to rubble as well. "Two left," Aqua noted, and charged the next one in line. She leapt over it and delivered a hard kick to its back, following it up with another chunk of ice to send it tumbling over to Juste.

"Having you here certainly makes things easier, Miss Aqua." Juste quipped as he landed a hit against it. It shuddered and broke apart as Aqua went for the last one.

Aqua followed the same pattern for this last one, unwilling to waste any more energy on annoyances. "Glad to be of service."

The last tombstone crumbled to dust, and they crossed the rest of the battlement unimpeded. A doorway led them into long corridor, constructed from stone that was white and various shades of gray. The walls were covered in ornate tapestries and intricate carvings and lined with suits of armor at regular intervals. Unlike the dilapidated castle entrance, however, this new area looked well maintained.

"The Castle Keep," Juste said as they paused to look around. "We're almost there. The throne room will be at the top of this area."

"It's certainly easy to see that their power is strong here," Aqua commented, noting the elaborate decor in good condition.

Juste hummed in agreement. "I imagine that if we allowed Dracula to continue on, the entire castle might eventually repair itself. As he grows stronger, so does the castle and the monsters under his control."

"I believe you've mentioned that before." She didn't see any immediate threats, but the area felt too empty to be safe, so she kept her blade out at her side just in case.

They walked through the first corridor unmolested, but that changed when they went through the door into the next room. The room they stepped into was at least two or three stories tall, with vaulted stone ceilings and ornate stone inlay floors. Statues in niches lined the walls, with tall windows in between them that allowed the moonlight to pour into the space. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling above, casting the room in a faint glow. Fireplaces were scattered about, each one taller than him, and despite the size of the room, the heat of them was enough to make Juste cough, though no smoke could be seen rising from the flames.

The sound of flapping wings came from above him, and he ducked and rolled to the side just as a trident slammed into the floor where he'd been standing. He rolled to his feet to see a large red demon, with tiny purple wings and backward curving horns pull its weapon out of the floor and dive at him again.

Aqua jumped back at the sudden appearance of the creature, grateful that Juste also managed to get out of the way. Since it was focused on him at the moment, Aqua grabbed the chance to get some distance to fire spells. Given the environment, she suspected ice would not work here, so she decided a different form would be necessary. She locked on to the enemy and fired a barrage of Meteor Rain at it.

As the creature dove at him again, Juste dodged to the left as he sent the Vampire Killer whipping across the space. The whip struck true just as Aqua's spell impacted the creature, and it let out a pained groan as it dropped the trident and faded away.

"Well, that was new." Juste said as he looked at the spot where the demon had been and wiped the sweat from his face. "I've never seen one of those before."

"Personally I'd like to know how it flew with such miniscule wings. I'm not saying flight by magic is impossible, because I've done it, but why even have wings to begin with if they don't do anything?"

"I quit worrying about such things years ago." Juste replied as they walked out of the room. "Doing so gives me a headache. Now, let's get this over with. Hopefully, this part of the castle isn't that large."

"I'm with you on that. Though, didn't that feel remarkably easy to you? I thought it would have been harder to kill."

"And I'm grateful for it. The easier the monsters, the faster we'll get out of here."

To Juste's pleasant surprise, they made good time through the keep. The place was packed with Dracula's minions as expected, but most of them went down fairly easily, with only the Liliths -

"Lesser version of the succubus and incubus." he explained to Aqua. "They feed off of the same energy, but they cannot shapeshift."

\- and the Valkyries being the exceptions.

The Liliths were in the habit of waiting until one of them got too close and then diving in for a kiss. They managed to evade all of the attempts, and the demons died after only a few hits, but it was a tiring way to deal with them.

The Valkyries, the winged women of Nordic legend, moved fast and hit hard, making them difficult targets to hit, so Aqua and Juste were tired, battered, and hungry when they finally spotted the doors to a sanctuary ahead of them. Spotting a cracked wall nearby, Juste walked over to it and attacked it when the whip.

"I'll be honest, I didn't think Valkyries were the sort to attack people, or deal with anyone who wasn't already dying, but then again, anything in here will unfailingly attempt to kill us, so I should have expected it. Now I know that I didn't want to ever face those mythological women in real life," Aqua commented as they moved. She watched with confusion as he attacked the wall. When food was revealed behind it, she recalled his statement about finding food within the castle walls at times. "I can't believe that's real."

Juste reached down and picked up the massive drumstick that must have come from a Cockatrice or something similar. The delightful scent of the cooked meat made his stomach growl in anticipation. It was so heavy that he needed both hands to carry it through the sanctuary door. He had to touch the statue with his elbow to refill his magic, and then he sat on the grass nearby and set the drumstick down in front of him.

"I don't know if this is a hold over from Walter or not," he said as he used his dagger to tear off a chunk of steaming meat, "but I am certainly not going to complain."

"I can't believe this exists. Stasis magic can only hold for so long. This is ridiculous." She stared at the meat, uncertain if she actually wanted to eat it, but it did smell amazing.

"Sit down, Miss Aqua." Juste said after he'd chewed and swallowed. "I assure you, eating this won't hurt you, and since I'm certain we're very close to the throne room, so you'll want to have your body well fed to get through the battle to come."

She sighed, but knew he was right. She sat down and debated on how to eat it. She had a fork, but would that be sufficient? She wasn't sure if she had a knife in her pockets or not. She ought to, if not. She withdrew the fork and commenced stabbing chunks from the giant drumstick.

"I almost feel bad," Juste commented after he'd eaten another hunk of meat, "about how much of this is going to go to waste. There is more than you and I could possibly finish, and what we leave will vanish once we leave the sanctuary."

"Well, we haven't eaten anything else the castle might have hidden away. So there will still probably be other places later explorers could find, at least," she replied in commiseration.

"Hopefully we won't need anything else after this, and once we're out of the castle, we'll be able to hunt for game on our way back to town."

"I would certainly prefer that. So are we resting here or setting out straight away?"

"I feel fine, and I'm ready to get moving. What about you?"

"Sure. Let's keep moving."

Juste stood up and brushed the grass from his clothing. He then led the way out of the sanctuary and back out into the corridor. Just to their right were a set of ornate double doors, and he pushed them open to walk into the next room, with Aqua right behind him. His senses screamed in warning as they swung open, and he looked up and stopped when he saw what was waiting for them in the large, circular room.

"Grandfather?"

Aqua dropped instantly on the defensive the moment they opened those doors. The being at the center of the room was practically drowning with darkness. Juste's unexpected address made her glance at him immediately, and his expression was so horrified and confused that she nearly cringed. "Whatever this is, Juste, you know that this can't be your grandfather. You told me he died a long time ago."

"I... I..." Juste found himself at a complete loss for words as he stared at the figure in the center of the floor. It was Grandfather and yet... Sara crackled in rage, and he could feel the dark power rolling across the room, and it was undoubtedly Dracula's power keeping this... _thing_ animated. It couldn't really be his grandfather – it just couldn't – but, the curse...

Whatever it was, it didn't move from where it was standing, which allowed Juste to get a good look at it. It was nearly identical to Simon Belmont. Even the hunting leathers with their myriad tassels and fur trim were the same. The hair was the same length, curling at the ends, but the bright red seemed to be washed out, faded. The skin was ghostly pale, and the body was thin, looking rather like the doppelgangers that they had faced earlier in the castle.

And then it spoke.

"Juste..." came a raspy, gurgling voice. "Help me..."

That couldn't be a good sign. "It's nothing but darkness. There's no way for you to help it. The only thing we can do is put it out of whatever misery it's in," Aqua quickly asserted.

Juste swallowed thickly and nodded. She was right. The darkness of Dracula's power drowned any light that a soul could have given off, so he couldn't tell if it was just a doppelganger or really his grandfather standing there, held in thrall by Dracula. He rested his hand on the Vampire Killer, and Sara's rage surged through him. There was no way to know if she was angry at the mockery made of one of her chosen or if her anger was due to Simon Belmont being held under Dracula's thrall. Either way, there was only one thing to do.

"Hydro Storm!"

The thing shrieked as holy water rained down in the room, and it snarled at him, its orange eyes glowing with hatred as it brought out its own mockery of the Vampire Killer and launched itself at him.

Aqua dodged back, away from the range of the whip, and sent a fireball at the creature. It hit, since its focus on Juste blindsided it, and it screamed, turning its attention temporarily to her. It snapped the whip toward her, and she attempted to parry it, but failed to account for the fact that a whip wraps around its target. The whip was intercepted by the keyblade, but it merely curved at the origin point and slapped her arm. She cried out and jumped back. Damn, she wasn't thinking.

The creature's scream felt like a blade in Juste's soul. Despite the raspy, wet quality of the voice, it even sounded like his grandfather. He heard Aqua cry out as it hit her with its whip, and he called up his magic and cast Startdust. With Dracula's power keeping it animated, their only hope of defeating it required that they hit it hard and fast to do as much damage as possible. Only then could they disrupt the flow of magic enough to stop it. Otherwise, Dracula would just keep feeding it power.

The Stardust spell turned it back towards him, and he saw it reach for its belt. He saw it grasp a small object and hurl it towards him, and Juste dove to his right to avoid the crystal vial as it arced past him. It shattered on the floor behind him and the carpet in that spot burst into dark flames. It snarled again and charged toward him, and he sent the Vampire Killer whipping out in front of him. The whip struck against the creature's right shoulder, but the blow barely slowed it down.

Aqua focused on fire, since that obviously hurt. She used Fire Surge to rush the creature from behind and avoid the whip, then while she was close, she coated her blade with fire and struck it dead on.

There was another shriek, and a dark aura burst into life around the doppelganger after Aqua dashed away. Juste halted his own attack as it rose off the floor and let out an enraged sounding growl. The lights in the room dimmed, and a corrupted version of his own Hydro Storm began to rain down upon them. Juste howled as the acidic water burned holes in his clothing and seared the skin underneath, and he dashed for the area under the mezzanine that went around the entire room. He saw Aqua doing the same, and they huddled there, waiting for the creature's spell to run its course.

"If you took as many shots head on, you'd go down," she grumbled. "It's completely unfair that the darkness can make something so durable."

Juste quickly quaffed a potion as the spell came to an end, and he tossed the bottle to the side as the creature dropped to the floor and looked around for them.

"Grandfather couldn't do that spell." he said as the creature spotted them and started moving in their direction. "Magic was never his strong suit."

Whatever Aqua had been intending to say in reply was lost when the doppelganger hurled its cross at them. They dodged in opposite directions, and the glowing red cross bounced off the wall and returned to its wielder.

Oh, so this was a super-powered version of his grandfather instead. Lovely. Aqua cast Thundaga to hopefully take the creature off guard and stun him for a moment, then sent another fireball towards him immediately after.

Aqua's fireball impacted the back of the doppelganger's head, and it hissed as its hair went up in flames. The fire also left the back of its head and neck severely burned, but it seemed to take no notice of it. Instead it only turned to Juste and charged at him again.

"It's me, Juste." it said as it streaked towards him, summoning a massive ax blade in front of it, intending to cut him in half. "I can't stop myself. He won't let me."

"My grandfather is dead." Juste replied as he dodged to the right and sent the Vampire Killer streaking after it. The whip struck right between its shoulder blades, and it whipped around to face him, swinging its whip as it went. Juste backflipped out of the way, but the distance was not enough, and the creature's whip caught him on his left arm.

His skin burned from the impact, and the arm hung uselessly at his side, numb from the site of the injury down.

"Look at what you made me do!" the wraith snapped at him. "I don't want to hurt you, but you've given me no choice!"

Juste wasn't able to freely switch between whip, subweapons, and magic with only one arm, and he swung the Vampire Killer out in front of him to keep the creature back while he tried to find Aqua. Hopefully her magic could...

The Vampire Killer stopped in mid swing, and Juste stared in shock to see the creature holding the end of the whip in one hand. Its hand smoked from the contact, but it only smirked at him and wrenched the whip from his grip and tossed it aside.

Damn, not good. She had to get over there immediately. To give herself time, she cast Ice Barrage directly beneath the creature, and the ice crystal burst up, throwing the monster into the air, then the second crystal erupted and tossed him higher, while she dashed to get there as soon as possible. If only a time spell would be effective on it, but she doubted it would be, and it would just waste her magic. Gravity might work though. "Graviga!" she shouted, and the monster slammed to the ground and was pinned down for a few moments. She reached Juste and cast a Cure spell on his arm. "Sara's over here, I don't dare touch her myself," she pointed to her as she spoke rapidly. The gravity spell was already wearing off, so she got ready to keep the creature occupied while Juste recovered.

Juste flexed his fingers as feeling returned to them. "Thank you, Miss Aqua." He dashed over to where the whip was lying, keeping one eye on the wraith as it got to its feet. He snatched up the Vampire Killer and spun around, swinging it in a wide arc in front of him, neatly deflecting the dagger that the doppelganger threw at it. It streaked towards him, and he wondered why it seemed content to ignore Aqua as he cast his Salamander spell. Two lines of flame rose up from the floor around it, and Juste used the chance to move away.

It was odd that it was determinedly fixated on Juste. It only paid her any attention for a few moments to get her off its back, then it went back to Juste. Well, it did make it easier to attack it with her spells. She cast Seeker Mine on the ground, knowing that it will zoom after the only hostile in the area in a few moments, and meanwhile she shot a Triple Firaga at the enemy. That missile-seeking aspect of it made it a very useful spell, she should use it more often.

"Why are you doing this to me, Juste!" the creature shrieked as Aqua's fire spell burned away part of its clothing and skin. The smell of burnt flesh was nauseating, and Juste swallowed as he hurled his cross at it. It bounced off the creature's chest, leaving a smoking rent before returning to his hand.

"If you are my grandfather," he said as he dodged an overhead swing of its whip that cracked the floor, "then the best thing is to set your soul free. If you're not him, if you're just a construct of Dracula, then I have to destroy you to get to him."

The doppelganger snarled at him and threw an ax in his direction. It arced up, and Juste dodged to the right so it embedded itself into the floor harmlessly.

Aqua nodded in agreement as she continued to back him up with additional spells. She paused to throw back an ether, then decided she was tired of fighting passively from afar. She dashed in and coated her keyblade with fire, then just tore at the creature's unprotected back.

It snarled and turned to face her, but Juste dashed forward and brought the Vampire Killer down in an overhead swing that cracked down on the top of its head. It screamed and stumbled, and Juste dashed away to avoid the counter that he knew was coming.

In the absence of its primary target, it spun and lashed out at Aqua instead, who threw up her barrier just in time to mitigate it. As soon as she let it fall, she delivered a hard Fire Strike to the wrist that directed the dark whip, with the intention of doing enough damage to interfere with its ability to use the weapon.

The wraith dropped its weapon, and Juste dashed in for the kill, aiming for the creature's vulnerable neck. Sara struck true, and a small burst of blood and bone chips erupted from the wraith's neck. It stumbled from the blow and struggled to keep its feet.

But Aqua was still there, and prepared. She chopped her keyblade into the opposite side of the creature's neck, and it could no longer remain upright. It dropped to the floor limply.

They looked at each other, and with a nod, both of them cast lightning at the still form, blasting it to small, charred pieces that then dissolved into the darkness whence it came.  
"I think a visit to the sanctuary is in order." Juste said in a flat tone.

"Of course," she agreed instantly. He definitely needed a bit of time to recover from something so personal being cast irreverently in his path, forcing him to destroy someone that looked like family throughout the entire confrontation.

 **OOOOOO**

When asked later, Juste couldn't recall the return walk to the Sanctuary. He touched the statue and flopped down on the grass. He then heaved a sigh and closed his eyes for a long moment.

Aqua let him have all the time he needed, and merely sat with her back against the statue, legs curled beneath her, and rested her eyes herself, the picture of tranquility despite the storm inside her.

"It was just a construct." Juste finally said after several minutes had passed. "No soul fled the creature upon its death, but still I..." He shook his head and took a deep breath. "Dracula is a master at finding your vulnerable areas and then using them against you."

"So it seems," Aqua replied softly. She hoped that was the last thing they would have to face to get to the vampire himself, because she was just about at her limit of what she can take. This castle was utterly exhausting. She couldn't imagine how the Belmont family had managed to fight it down time and time again.

Juste sighed again. "The first time Grandfather faced Dracula, he came home thinking that everything was right and good and he could live out his life in peace. What he didn't know was that Dracula had cursed him with his dying breath. Grandfather's wounds wouldn't heal, he began to feel tired and sickly, and he started to waste away. Eventually, the curse was revealed to him by an old medicine woman, who also informed him that if he died while under the curse's effects, his soul would belong to Dracula, to be used however the vampire wished, while his drained life energy would be used to resurrect him. Some accounts say that Grandfather's body was starting to rot like a corpse by then, but he had no choice. He went out, resurrected Dracula himself, and destroyed him, thus breaking the curse over him – or so we all hoped."

He shifted on the grass and looked up at the statue. "Even with the curse lifted, there was always that worry in the back of our minds: what if it wasn't gone? What if it hadn't been completely broken? When Grandfather passed, he was surrounded by priests and mages and as many magic users among the Belmonts and Belnades that we could fit into the room, to create safe passage for his soul to the afterlife. We all were fairly certain that we had succeeded in ushering him on safely, but there was always that nagging worry that we all had but never spoke off. What if we hadn't? Seeing that wraith standing there..." He shook his head. "I don't think I'll ever forget that."

"I'm sorry he put you through that." She opened her eyes and turned to look at him at last. "You don't deserve to be tormented this way."

He turned to look at her and gave her a weak smile. "It just makes me all the more eager to get to him and put an end to this."

"I agree. Are you ready to finish this, then?" Hopefully no more interruptions on the path. Surely he must have been running low on obstacles by this point.

He nodded and stood up. "Hopefully, the throne room stairs will be on the other side of that circular room."

 _Fates willing._ She stood as well and brushed her half-skirt off. "Let's get going then."

No more words were said as they left the Sanctuary and walked back down the hallway and through the circular room. No monsters appeared as they went, and when Juste pushed open the double doors opposite the ones they had come in through, they were greeted by a crumbling stone staircase, with blood red carpet going up the middle of it. At regular intervals along the railings were taller stone poles, each with a fire burning at the top, lighting the way. The wind blew fiercely across the stairs, and the full moon, red as blood, shone from behind the throne room above.

 _That moon is so disconcerting._ Aqua kept apace with Juste, blade at the ready. She merely hoped they could finish this quickly.

Dracula's power seemed to bear down on them as they ascended the steps, walking side by side.

"Since he possessed Marluxia," Juste said as they went up, barely able to hear himself over the screaming wind, "Dracula will be at full power. He won't look like he did back in the courtyard. Instead he'll look as he did as a human, only with any signs of aging wiped away. He often changes form once he's taken enough damage, usually into some kind of winged demon, so be prepared for that."

They reached the top of the stairs, and they paused with the doors right ahead of them. "Are you ready, Miss Aqua?"

She set her jaw. "Let's do this."

They pushed the doors open, which opened nearly silently on their heavy hinges, revealing an opulent room, circular in shape, that was dimly lit by candles all about the walls and hanging from the ceiling on chandeliers. The candlelight flickered off the polished stone floor, the mullioned windows, and the gilt frames of various paintings scattered about the room. A long red carpet ran straight down the center of the room, leading to a dais where a massive throne was sitting. Upon that throne, reclining comfortably as though he was merely contemplating what to have for dinner rather than about to get into a battle, was Dracula.

He looked nearly identical to the portrait of Mathias Cronqvist that hung in the Belmont family home. If it wasn't for the porcelain white skin, red eyes, and lack of any signs of aging – wrinkles, spots, gray hairs – one would believe that Mathias had returned as a human somehow. He wore a wool tunic that was finer than anything Juste had ever had, and it was intricately embroidered with fanciful designs and filigree. His dark hair reflected the candlelight as he sat up to look at them.

He smiled, and the sight of it made chills race up Juste's spine. "Greetings, so good of you to join us at last."

It was entirely unfair that someone so evil was also so beautiful. But Aqua had experience fighting beautiful men before, and it would not faze her. "What is it that you want, honestly?" she asked boldly, because she was also fed up with this entire thing. "Eternal night and fear of the masses? World domination? I don't know if this is news to you, but you're not the only megalomaniac in the universe, and all of them fall in time. So will you."

Dracula only smiled again as he rose from his throne. "What I want is make God watch as His humans suffer, as the world He built is burned to ashes, as I destroy His universe, piece by piece! I will have my vengeance, and I will start... with you!" He laughed then, vanishing into a column of fire as he teleported away.

"Here we go!" Juste called out. "He can appear anywhere, so be careful!"

Oh how wonderful. So he intended to destroy everything to spite a god that Aqua didn't even believe in. Brilliant. She rolled her eyes as she fell into a stance in which she could shift quickly to dodge aside.

Juste felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and he tucked and rolled away just in time to dodge Dracula's outstretched hands that tried to grab him. He rolled to his feet and spun around, swinging the Vampire Killer in a wide arc. It struck the vampire on the arm, but seemed to do little, if anything. Dracula laughed again as he teleported away, and as he did, the candlelight glinted off a sparkling red gem that was hanging from a silver chain around his neck.

"The Crimson Stone," he whispered, and then he called out to Aqua. "The stone around his neck is the Crimson Stone! Try and hit it!"

Ah, now she had a specific target. She took the opportunity while waiting for Dracula to reappear to charge up a Thunder spell that might stun him out of his teleporting. She hated teleporters. They were always such a pain. The second she saw him reappear out of the corner of her eye she let the charge go and lightning bolts struck the ground in a large circle around her.

Dracula only laughed at the hit, and he snapped his fingers. Blue flames erupted from the floor and then split into two, each stream following one of them. Juste cast Hydro Storm as he went, but Dracula teleported away before the spell had a chance to touch him.

Aqua knew her shield would have no effect on whether she would be cooked alive, so she ran from the fire, though she attempted to stall the flames with an ice spell. It simply melted through it and kept going after her. She then turned and dashed for Juste's storm, knowing the rain wouldn't hurt her, and the flames would be quenched in the water.

Dracula's laughter once again sounded in the room as he reappeared by the throne. "Over here." he said, and Juste spun on his heel and swung the whip overhead. It cracked down on Dracula's head, and he followed it by throwing his cross, which landed a hit against the vampire's neck. He then had to duck as Dracula held out his arm, and six massive fireballs flew at him and Aqua, which forced them to duck and jump to evade them.

Aqua sent a single ice block Dracula's way, knowing even as she did so that it wouldn't hit. She would have to be closer if she were to have any hope of that. But it was better than doing nothing as they dodged the vampire's attacks. "We have to work together on this," Aqua stated to Juste while they were nearer to one another. "We have to attack him on opposite sides at the same time or we're never going to do much damage."

"I'm certain that we are hurting him, even if he's not showing it, but I would like for this to be over as quickly as possible. What do you have in mind?"

"Not sure exactly, we just have to try. It's nearly impossible for me to get close enough to him when he's attacking you, so we should try to stay close for a bit so one of us can hit him hard while he's focused on the other. My magic isn't very useful when he's halfway across the hall; he can easily get away from it." This was followed by an irate, muttered, " _I hate teleporters._ "

"It's as good a plan as any." The fire appeared in front of them, and Dracula appeared, laughing as he did so. That laughter was really starting to grate on his nerves. "And here's our chance to test it."

Aqua cartwheeled to the side, leaving Dracula to focus on Juste, then while he was distracted with him, she dashed mere steps forward with a frost coated blade and chopped at his neck from behind.

Dracula whirled around to face Aqua. "Who are you! What is that weapon you carry!" but Juste gave him no time to go after her. He sent Sara streaking over to him, and she connected solidly with the back of his head. The vampire snarled and teleported away, without laughing this time.

"I'd say that was effective." Juste said as they waited for him to reappear.

"Guess you should've paid more attention to Marluxia's memories before you absorbed him," Aqua taunted quietly as he vanished. "He might not let us manage that again, but let's try it anyway."

This time Dracula appeared at Aqua's side to burn her, but she leapt back before the flames could harm her. He stayed close, however, and then his arm snapped out to grab her by the neck. But ohh no, Aqua had had that happen to her more than enough at this point in her life and it was not going to happen again. Her parry came most swiftly, her keyblade cracking into his arm to smack it away from her before his fingers could close around her throat.

Dracula teleported again before Juste could get his own attack in. "Your soul will made a fine addition to my collection." he purred as he reappeared. He did not attack as Juste dashed in, but then the vampire began to glow with a hellish red light.

"Back away!" Juste screamed as he scrambled to the farthest part of the room he could reach. "Get as far away from him as you can!"

Aqua startled, but immediately did as warned, sprinting for the edge of the room and throwing up her barrier once she could move no further in case it could help at all.

Dracula began to shake as the glow increased. "Demonic Meggido!" he roared in a voice that sounded like it came from Hell itself, and an half sphere of pure, black magic, black at the floor and gradually transitioning red as it rose, spread out from Dracula, nearly filling the entire room. The mere proximity of it made Juste's stomach twist itself into a knot as sweat popped out on his forehead. The throne room shook, and the lights from the candles dimmed.

It certainly was not something one could _defend_ against. The pressure of it made Aqua feel suddenly horribly nauseous and she had to brace herself against the wall so that she didn't fall to her knees, shuddering.

They huddled against the wall for what seemed like ages until Dracula finally released the spell. He then teleported away, laughing once more. Juste dragged himself to his feet and ordered his legs to stop shaking.

"He's early." he commented. "He normally saves that for later."

"You don't say," Aqua replied dryly further along the wall, after swallowing fiercely against the bile in her throat. She quickly withdrew an elixir from her pocket and took a sip of it, just to bring a flush of strength back to her body so she could move the moment Dracula chose to reappear.

"Hahahahahah!" Dracula's laughter was Juste's only warning when he suddenly appeared behind him. He went to dash out of the way, but his still shaking legs took just a second too long to respond, and Dracula's freezing cold fingers closed around his neck. He found himself turned around and hoisted off the floor as he called up his magic to defend himself.  
"Soul Steal!"

Juste gasped as he felt his energy being dragged painfully out of him. His magic sputtered under the sudden assault, and the spell failed.

But Aqua flew in a second later, taking advantage of the fact that Dracula had to hold still for his spell. She delivered a particularly strong strike to his head, followed by a fireball directly in his face, and if that didn't disrupt that Soul Steal spell of his, she didn't know what would.

Juste gasped again as Dracula dropped him to the floor, and he scrambled away, fishing a potion out of his pocket as he went. He downed it, tossed the vial aside, and it allowed him to regain his feet just as Dracula teleported yet again.

He reappeared in the center of the room, glowed white for a second, and then triangular shapes, flashing different colors, flew across the room at him and Aqua. He jumped and rolled over and around them as he tried to close the distance for an attack. Once the final one had passed over him he cast Seven Saints, which set seven small crosses whirling around him, and he lashed the Vampire Killer at Dracula's head and neck. He landed two hits with the whip, and several with the crosses before Dracula teleported away again.

Aqua attempted to cast her direction-changing fireballs while dodging the pointy shapes, but unfortunately only one of the three made it through the barrage of triangles to hit the vampire just before Juste's own attack connected. She grumbled in frustration as she sought Dracula's next location, annoyed at how ineffective she was in this fight.

He reappeared in the exact same place that he had just been in, and he opened his cape wide. Bats, large ones, dozens off them, began flying out from under it, streaming towards Juste and Aqua. He stood up and spun the Vampire Killer out in front of him, casting the Gradius spell as he went. Two large spinning shields appeared, and he stopped his whip attack as the bats smashed into the shields, each hit causing them to shrink slightly.

Aqua, on the other hand, cast a large Graviga spell and sent a large majority of them smashing to the floor, plastered to the stone.

Dracula teleported again, and this time he appeared directly in front of Aqua. His hand was a blur as it reached out and wrapped around her neck. Juste heard her surprised yelp as he ran forward, but he was on the far side of the room.

Having only just finished her previous spell, she was unprepared to dodge or block, and he held her fast, as he bared his fangs and sank them into her neck. She screamed, the tear of vulnerable flesh and the withdrawal of her blood more painful than she could have anticipated, and she felt her body weakening as he continued, sapping the strength to fight free.

"Let go of her!" Juste was barely aware of his yell as he ran towards them, Sara flying out in front of him to strike Dracula directly on the back of his head. Bits of blood, bone, and flesh erupted from the point of impact, but they healed almost instantly as the vampire dropped Aqua and teleported away with another laugh.

Juste reached her as she shakily got to her feet, fished a potion from her pocket, and downed it in one gulp.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

"I'll live. Time for something more effective," she growled.

Dracula appeared near the throne them, and the two of them were forced to dodge a long string of human sized fireballs for a moment. "I agree. Shall we try one of our accidental dual crushes?"

He cast his meteor spell, and she promptly cast one of her ice spells. The two spells met, combined, and ice meteors rained down on Dracula's head.

Dracula snarled and moved to the center of the room.

"Enough!" he growled in a tone that made the hair on the back of Juste's neck stand up. "Playtime is over!" The vampire rose into the air to hover near the ceiling as his red eyes began to glow. The lights in the room dimmed again, and a black aura flared into being around him. "Give. Me. Power!"  
Juste skipped back away from him, and he looked for Aqua to see her doing the same. "This is his final form. He will be far more powerful this time, so never take your eyes off of him."

"Can he still teleport?" she asked instantly.

"He probably can, but no one has ever reported him doing it at this stage." Darkness had engulfed the vampire by then, and it slowly descended to the floor in front of the throne and drifted away to reveal and enormous pair of wings. Wings that then abruptly opened.  
Dracula no longer looked anything resembling a human. He was now nearly twice as tall as them, and he had turned into some hybrid of a bat and a demon. Glowing red eyes stared out of a flattened face that had no real nose, his skin had darkened to nearly black, and great leathery wings seemed to fill the room.

Not the most frightening thing she'd ever seen, but it certainly made the short list. Shaking herself out of an almost spellbound state at the sight of him, she called up a barrier and cast Aeroga on herself in preparation.

Dracula flapped his massive wings, causing a wind that blew out the candles, and flew straight towards Juste. Juste backflipped just as a massive fist slammed into the floor where he'd been standing. The room shook, and cracks spread across the stone floor from the force of the blow.  
He quickly regained his feet and sent Sara flying. The whip landed a solid hit against the vampire's right shoulder, to which Dracula responded by rising back into the air and smashing his hand down again. The second impact left a small crater behind in the floor as Juste backed up to get some room.

Aqua used the distance (and lack of teleportation now, thank the stars) to shoot rapid-fire flame spells at Dracula, aiming for the rather larger target he now presented. Several of them struck true, given that he was more restricted in his ability to dodge.

Dracula made no sound or other sign that Aqua's attacks had hurt him in any way as he spread his wings wide and began slowly moving from one side of the room to the other. Flames appears in the air in front of his outstretched wings and spiraled down to the floor, forcing Juste to dodge between then as he waited for the vampire to move close enough for a physical strike. He cast a Pinwheel at him, a small whirring flame that expanded rapidly when it touched him, but again Dracula made no sound that he had been injured, and there was no visible mark when the spell had ended.

Aqua really hated that little feature of his. She could at least tell whenever her attacks hit Heartless, Unversed, Nobodies, any of the countless enemies she had faced over her life, but this creature leaked no response whatsoever and it made defeating him infinitely more difficult. She dodged his area attacks as Juste had and continued to fire spells at him from afar, switching elements simply to see if anything seemed any more effective than the others. She quaffed an ether when her magic stores ran low and continued her steady onslaught.

Light formed several swirling patterns on the floor, tracking them, and Juste jogged across the room as the lights suddenly erupted in small explosions that made his skin tingle The vampire then flew to the throne and stood there, looking as though he was deep in thought as his massive wings suddenly stretched out to encompass the entire room. They then began to slowly tighten around them, forming an ever shrinking circle.

Juste dashed forward and began raining blows with the whip down on Dracula's head, who made no sign that he even knew someone was there. Still, the wings, with their massive claws, continued to close in on them.

This forced Aqua to move from her relatively safe distance near the edges to fall in closer, which she didn't particularly care for. But since she wasn't being given much choice, she shifted her strategy to match. She did her best to stay out of Juste's way while attacking Dracula with her keyblade. Yet the wings did not cease their entrapment, and finally Aqua cried out, "Faith!" and blasted them outward with a circle of light.

Juste had to laugh quietly to himself as he heard the smack of the leathery wings hitting the walls, followed by Dracula bringing them in and moving away from the throne. He streaked towards Aqua and smashed his hand into the floor again as she cartwheeled away from him.

 _Really, all brawn and no finesse. Guess he traded his brain for power._ Aqua continued to dodge away from him. Now that his focus was her, thanks to that last spell of hers, it was rather harder to gain distance while his attention was fixated on smashing her in retaliation. But she hadn't made it this far in her life for nothing. She cartwheeled once more, twisted back to face her enemy, and threw her keyblade wreathed in fire straight at his face, then danced away again as it made the return journey to her.

Juste took a running slide right under Dracula's feet, and he stood back up and landed several hits with the Vampire Killer, and dodged away as the vampire turned to face him. Dracula rose up near the ceiling again, and threw his hands out, and blood began to rain down heavily in the room. Juste yelped as it burned holes in his clothing and produced small burns where it touched his skin. He dove towards Aqua, casting a healing spell on himself as he went.

Aqua, too, yelped as a few drops of the rain made contact with her skin, most of it thankfully whisked away by her Aeroga shield. She noted Juste coming towards her, and hurried to meet him, waiting to cast her barrier until he could be shielded by it as well. The blood hissed upon splattering against her spell, but it didn't pass through, and instead merely painted the pink shield red.

Juste sighed as Aqua cast her shield, giving them a place to hide from the falling blood. "This is a new one." he commented as the magic came to an end.

"Didn't have this lovely trick last time?" she replied dryly as she dispelled her barrier the instant it was viable, lest they be attacked while blinded by the blood coating the spell.

"Not at all, but I had it relatively easy last time." Juste cast his Ice Needle spell, and a large ice crystal formed above him and began firing ice at Dracula.

Easy would have been nice, but well, she'd take fighting a difficult enemy with a friend rather than a difficult enemy alone as she had so often been over the years. She hopped away from him, hoping to let Dracula focus on Juste again whilst she sent spells arcing across the room at him. It seemed fire and light, no surprise there, were most effective, so she focused on large flame spells when she could. Triple Firaga was a particular favorite here.

Suddenly Dracula drew back and raised his arms as though lifting something quite heavy, and a horde of Heartless crawled from the masonry. Aqua cursed quietly and redirected her own attention. "Focus on him!" she cried at Juste and set to work dispersing the teeming swarm of shadows and the various musically-themed spellcasters, interspersed with more resilient enemies, Neoshadows and Large Bodies. She began by spamming Meteor Shower, destroying many of the lowest ranked Heartless with a single ray of light. But there were so many, and she only had so much focus with such a majority to contend with. She leapt forward into the fray and released a few Thundaga spells in quick succession into the horde around her, using the moments of paralysis on those that were not killed instantly to wipe them out with her keyblade. The mass of Heartless seemed almost unending, but this was her true element, and she knew exactly what to do.

Juste kicked a small Heartless out of his way and he moved in to get a hit in, but he had to pause when he saw Dracula move back towards the throne, curl up on himself, and then throw his arms out.

"Die!" he roared in an impossibly deep voice, and a wave of pure energy flew across the room, which forced Juste to vault over it. The hair on his arms and legs stood up as the wave passed under him. His feet hit the floor, and he was running straight for the throne.

"Holy Lightning!" The magic erupted from his hand as the Vampire Killer whipped across the space between them, striking a blow right above the vampire's heart. Dracula only laughed and flew away to the other side of the room.

Aqua had little time to notice the massive wave from their boss cross the floor, but she did see it just in time to jump it herself, and as countless Heartless tried to follow her a beat too late, they were all obliterated by Dracula's own attack. She landed lightly and continued her assault, massacring the droves of Heartless still present. She used her magic to her advantage, to spin flames around her and coat her keyblade in various elements to further damage and destroy her enemies. Crystal hearts from the Emblem Heartless floated to the ceiling and disappeared, while the pureblood Heartless, of which there were far more, merely disintegrated into darkness as her keyblade put an end to them.

Juste turned and crossed the room just below a run, leaping over the few remaining Heartless as he went. Dracula swept his arms out in front of him, leaving a bloody cloud in the air to mark their passage, and Juste dropped down to avoid touching it. He cast Stardust as he backed away from the fading cloud and got to his feet, just in time for Dracula's hand to slam down to the floor right in front of him. The stone shattered, sending large shards of it flying in every direction. Most were deflected by his clothing, but a few smaller ones managed to break the skin on his legs.

"Fabulous." he grumbled to himself as he cast another healing spell. He then backed up to get some more space and summoned the Phoenix again. Fire rained down in the room, but Dracula seemed to ignore it.

It did, however, demolish the final Heartless, and Aqua shifted her attention to the vampire again at last, downing an elixir in her retreat to take care of her low magic reserves (once again) and ease the tired ache of her limbs from the nonstop attacks she'd performed. "I'm not sure how much more of this I can take," Aqua admitted wearily as she neared Juste again, preparing to back him up.

Juste quaffed a mana prism. "I, too, am growing weary of this." Across the room, Dracula laughed as he fired off several glowing lines of energy that honed in on them, forcing them to dodge.

Aqua didn't bother with a barrier, as she anticipated that light beaming straight through it. So she cartwheeled aside instead, continuing to move until they stopped coming near her. She darted a glance toward Juste, wishing she had a better sense of how they actually do their combined attacks. Typically if he didn't initiate it, she had no idea how to make them happen. Her lapse in attention cost her: Dracula shot another salvo at them and she was a little too slow on the draw, and one of the beams caught her arm as she attempted to cartwheel out of the way. She cried out as her arm crumpled from the sudden pain (and damn it, it's the same arm she injured earlier, it was already weakened), and she shifted quickly into a roll to at least take advantage of her momentum to stay alive and further unharmed. As soon as she gained a measure of safety, she looked to her arm and hissed at the burn damage. Seemed to be a laser burn; she remembered those from her trips to Deep Space. They instantly cauterized the wounds, making them harder to heal. She tugged a potion from her pocket and poured half of it directly over her wound, then downed the rest as she began to run again.

Juste darted forward as Dracula's laughter filled the room – he was really starting to loathe that sound. Thank goodness the wraith he'd faced before hadn't done that. He quickly landed several strikes with the whip, before a pillar of fire erupting from the floor forced him to roll out of the way to the side.

Aqua jumped back from the flames as well, quickly darting out of range and firing a Triple Blizzaga at Dracula, pleased to see that they hit their target even though the vampire had shifted.

Dracula then began to fly in a circle against the room's walls, and light swirled about around his hands before concentrating into a beam that swept across the floor. Juste jumped over the beam, and then had to duck and roll under it as it came by a second time, followed by another jump to clear it. The second jump put him close to where Aqua was.

"We need to end this now." he said as they leapt over the beam again. "Do you wish to try another dual spell?"

"Absolutely, go for it. The sooner he's gone the sooner we can leave this place and be done with it all." She was getting tired of so many high-energy battles, and her potion supply was almost completely wiped out.

They rolled once more, and finally the attack came to an end, only to be replaced by Dracula charging directly at them and trying to smash them with his monstrous hands. They backflipped out of the way.

"Something holy or light elemental would be best."

"In that case I've only got the one spell, so hopefully you can find something to match." They dodged back yet again.

"Just cast the next time he pauses."

They continued to stay out of his way, until they were given the opportune moment. Aqua cast Faith while Juste called forth Grand Cross, and when the two spells combined, the result was an explosion of white that threw them back into the walls.

Aqua blacked out for a moment, and came to to find her eyesight filled with black spots and ears ringing.

 _How in the world did that happen?_ Juste had time to think as he was flung across the room. He landed against the base of a wall somewhere and found his vision whited out for a moment. Magic crackled over his skin, far more powerful than he had intended, and he could feel his hair standing up on end, as though he was in the middle of a thundercloud.

A quick healing spell cleared his eyesight, and he stood up to see Aqua getting to her feet over to his right. He turned towards the throne to see Dracula – back in human form – kneeling at the foot of the throne. Juste got to his feet and walked over, and Aqua fell into step beside him, and they came to a stop in front of the stunned vampire. The window behind him had blown out from the force of the combined spell, and the darkness outside was beginning to slowly fade.

"You're done." Juste said simply, and the vampire looked up at him.

"For now." he said with a smile that bared his fangs. "I will be back, Belmont."

"Good luck controlling the darkness without one of my people to take over first," Aqua commented with a trace of disgust in her voice.

Dracula gave a rueful chuckle. "There will always be those willing to sell their soul for power. Marluxia wasn't the first, and he certainly won't be the last."

Sunlight, weak at first but gradually growing brighter, began to shine through the broken window, and as the rays touched the vampire, he began to dissolve into rivulets of black dust that drifted up towards the ceiling. Juste took a step back as the dissolution moved downward, until Dracula couldn't be seen through it. Finally it cleared, leaving Marluxia in its place. He was on his knees on the floor, and he swayed for a moment before he collapsed forward to the floor, not moving.

Aqua paused for a moment more to see if he would pop up again, but when he didn't, she drew closer and knelt to check for a pulse. "Gone. There's nothing I can do."

"He never had a chance once he let Dracula possess him." Juste commented as he stared down at the unmoving figure. "As much as it saddens me to just leave him here, we need to leave, now."

"I know." She rose back to her feet and felt the rumbling begin in the depths of the castle. "Any objections to skipping a race back through the halls? I have a faster way out."

The rumbling reached the throne room, and it began to shake as cracks formed in the walls, floor and ceiling. "Such an escape would be greatly appreciated." Chunks of stone and masonry began raining down from the ceiling. "We have to get out of here, right now!" He started for the door, stumbling as the shaking worsened, and the castle began to crumble.

"Not that way!" she called out, and threw her keyblade into the air. It transformed and came down to meet her. She jumped on and glided over to Juste, reaching out a hand to grab him and pull him onto the scooter behind her. Once he was secure, she raced across the throne room and straight out through the blown-out window, breaking into the sunshine as the castle crumbled below them.

Juste clamped his mouth shut to prevent the womanlike shriek that wanted to come out. Humans weren't meant to fly, yet here they were, hundreds of feet up in the air as the castle collapsed into a pile of rubble. He chanced a look down at it, and the view made his stomach sink to his boots. He slammed his eyes shut and tightened his grip on Aqua's shoulders as the wind streamed through his hair and clothing.

She dragged her eyes away from the fascinating sight of the castle falling in on itself when she felt Juste's hold on her tighten, looking back at him over her shoulder, and had to bite her lip to prevent herself from laughing. It wasn't fair to find his fear funny when this was as foreign to him as anything could possibly be. His world didn't have flight yet; it was natural to be afraid. She couldn't suppress it entirely though, and her shoulders shook in silence. But she didn't want to make him suffer long, so she angled her glider to the castle entrance and zoomed (slowly) there to let him back onto solid ground as soon as possible.

 _Thank you, Lord for the quick escape from the castle._ Juste thought as soon as his feet touched the ground. _And thank You again for making it short._

He stood there for a moment as the remains of the castle crashed to the ground amidst a billowing cloud of dust. Finally the debris stilled, the dust blew away on the breeze, and they were left standing by the ruins as the leaves rustled and the birds sang. The sun was warm as it shone down on him, and the entire area was quiet and peaceful.

"This place feels completely different now that the darkness is gone," Aqua commented.

"Indeed." Juste took a deep breath, smelling the water from the nearby lake, and the perfume of flowers that were littered about. "'Tis a shame that Dracula will return to spoil this place once more in time."

"I hope one day he can be defeated forever." Kingdom Hearts knew it had taken forever to finally eradicate Xehanort and all of his darkness. Thirteen vessels in the end, how did the man ever grasp such power as to accomplish that? They were never quite able to figure it out. But they knew he was gone for good at last. And good riddance.

Juste glanced up at the sky; it was late afternoon. "Shall we track down the horses and set up camp for the night? We can start our return journey in the morning."

"I would offer to glide around to find them but too much of that may draw attention, traveler benefits or not."

Juste repressed a shiver at the thought of being on that thing. "With Dracula's presence gone, they'll come looking for us."

She hadn't said he had to join her. "The horses? What makes you so sure?"

"Multiple reasons." He turned to face the trees and whistled. "They're well trained, they know the good food is at home, and finally -" He smiled when he heard a whicker of greeting, followed shortly by a second "- a well loved, well cared for horse will return that with their own loyalty and affection."

"I see," she said, blinking in surprise at the emergence of the horses from the nearby tree cluster.

Juste smiled again and reached up to pet a velvety nose for a moment before he turned to face Aqua. "Let's get settled then, shall we?"

 **OOOOOO**

"Are you certain that you don't want to stay a bit longer?" Juste asked Aqua as they casually strolled away from town, so she could fly away without being seen. "We would be happy to have you stay."

"I appreciate the thought, but I really should be going," she replied regretfully. "I need to report back, and I've already stayed longer than expected. I'm not even supposed to interact with the native peoples any more than necessary, and we had quite a lot more interaction than I usually do on my missions."

"Well, in this case, I would say it was needed, and welcome. I rarely get help in these endeavors, and it was very much appreciated." The fact that he was able to learn some of her magic had just been an added benefit. It had taken him a few days to learn it, but he was now rather fond of the spell that she had called "Mega Flare"

She too had come away with new magic that she was quite pleased with, despite having quite a bit more trouble with the way she had to shape the magic to make it work. It was quite different from her usual brand, but she enjoyed learning everything he was willing to teach her. "I couldn't have done this without you, so I'm grateful we were together. Thank you so much." To be sure, she flared her senses out one more time, and found no sign of darkness caused by Heartless. With the death of Dracula and Marluxia, their pull into this world was gone, and there was nothing to draw them here without it.

"As much as I enjoyed working with you, I hope those Heartless never appear here again. Sadly, Dracula had been telling the truth; there will always people that are willing to sell their souls to him for power."

"Well, I can say that as of right now we don't know anyone else that would be willing to do so, so you should be left in peace for a time at least. But I can also say that unfortunately, we won't be able to intervene unless someone using the darkness comes back here to pull Heartless into your world again. We can't meddle in the affairs of other worlds," she repeated ruefully.

He smirked. "I won't tell, if you won't. No one needs to know just how much you and I interacted." He chuckled. "No one would believe me anyway. A visitor from another world? I would be laughed out of town, or thought insane."

She smiled. "Well in this event, our problems became yours, so it was important that we come to help. It was a good time, in spite of the difficult battles. I won't forget it, that's for sure."

"You're welcome to come back, any time, regardless of whether the Heartless return or not. That was... not fun... but having you along certainly made the journey more bearable and less tedious, and I will never forget that."

"I appreciate the offer," she answered, not making any promises. Unlike Sora, she didn't take pleasure trips to visit friends, much as she sometimes wished to. "It was good to meet you, Juste. You and your family take care."

"And you as well, Miss Aqua."

She smiled at him one last time, then summoned her keyblade, creating a portal in the sky. She triggered her armor, then hopped on her glider and shot off into space.

Juste watched her fly off into the evening sky. "Godspeed, Miss Aqua." He then turned and started for home, where his family was waiting.

 **Mission Report**

Aqua looked back as she drew away from the strangely massive planet. For all the difficulties she'd faced there, she'd quite liked Juste. Perhaps it would be worth coming back sometime to visit, rules be damned. For the moment, anyway, she had to return to the Wizard's Tower to make her report to Yen Sid.

She delivered her information in her typical no-nonsense fashion, detailing the world, the castle, and the enemies she and Juste faced. She explained the lore of the castle, how it rose up every generation or two due to its undying master, and told Yen Sid all about how Marluxia had joined with Dracula this time to jump start the resurrection in a bid for more power. Marluxia was responsible for bringing the Heartless to that world, and he perished in thinking he could control Dracula, who proved him wrong in short order. "And yes, an actual vampire and someone who is at the very least an avatar of Death, if not the real thing. I know it sounds crazy, but it happened." She also spoke of how time was out of sync in the castle, as they spent the better part of a week at least inside but given Yen Sid's own account of days, it couldn't possibly have been that long outside. With anyone else (read: Sora), her report might not have been considered credible, there would be assumptions that her imagination got the better of her, but because it was Aqua, her word was enough. She was not one for flights of fancy. Those already remained firmly within her books.

Master Yen Sid stroked his beard thoughtfully. "So, the Heartless were drawn to that world by Marluxia's presence, and the Darkness in his heart. Recovering his heart did not seem to cure him of his attempts to grow more powerful."

"No, evidently not. When we defeated Dracula at last, I'm afraid Marluxia was dead. There was no saving him after he accepted Dracula into him like a parasite."

"Do you believe that there is a possibility that this Dracula could be a threat to the other worlds?"

"He certainly wants to be. He's very much the megalomaniac type. But the Belmont family is devoted to keeping him contained in that castle, and provide a hero to destroy him every time he's able to resurrect. They've managed it on their own every time before this. So I don't believe we need to interfere. This time he could have broken free due to his access to powers of Darkness, but provided that he doesn't get another one of our people again, there should be no problem. He can't access it on his own."

Yen Sid closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly. "Then we shall have to watch that world, if only to prevent another Marluxia. Dracula was correct when he stated that there will always be those willing to sacrifice for power." He looked at her. "You have said that the people there have no hearts? You are certain of this."

"Absolutely. I checked myself. They believe in the power of souls rather than hearts, and certainly seem to be correct for it. I had a much harder time gauging people's intentions there, as everything seemed to be more grey and intangible. Juste said he had a similar problem with me, since I have a heart rather than soul. He said that my soul seemed nearly nonexistent, certainly not like the rest of them. That's also why I don't believe Dracula can harness the power of darkness without a host with a heart to use. We use, and fall to, darkness through the darkness in our hearts, after all, so if you lack a heart, it seems to me that it would be very difficult to use the darkness. And we've already determined that Nobodies regain their hearts with time, so that's why they can use it to make corridors and the like."

"That is strange indeed. It seems that we still have much to learn about the other worlds."

"I agree. It does bother me that Dracula now knows definitively that other worlds exist due to Marluxia's interference, but I have faith that the world's occupants will keep a firm handle on things. If they're anything like Juste, I trust them entirely."


End file.
